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Charles J. Reid

04/18/2016

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders took time off from the campaign trail on April 15 to address the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a kind of think tank located at the Vatican.

How to describe the address? It will likely have little direct impact on this year’s presidential cycle. From a purely practical, tactical vantage point, Senator Sanders might have better spent his time in Albany, or Buffalo, given the impending New York primary.

Still, it is possible that we shall look back on this speech a few years hence and see within it a turning point in American political thought. For what Senator Sanders has done is return to an old source of inspiration for progressive politics and that is the social teaching of the Catholic Church.

Bernie Sanders quite properly began his speech with a nod to Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical of 1891, Rerum Novarum. That encyclical was issued in a moment of crisis for western economies. Unrestrained capitalism had wreaked untold damage on Europe and the United States. There was fear of revolution. The Pope spoke urgently of the need to find “some opportune remedy . . . for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class.” With the rise of laissez faire economics, Leo went on, traditional legal restraints on capital were removed and so “by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hard-heartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition.”

But Senator Sanders also turned to more recent papal teaching. He noted properly that Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus, issued in 1991, called on governments to ensure wages sufficient not only for subsistence but sufficient to support a family and even ensure some savings. And Senator Sanders eloquently endorsed Pope Francis’ description of the modern human condition: The globalization of indifference.” Emulating the Pope, Sanders pledged “to fight the economic juggernaut” and to reestablish “boundaries” around “the market economy.”

So what makes Sanders’ speech special? There is a remarkable convergence between Sanders’ criticism of the rapacity of today’s global marketplace and Pope Francis’. This should not in itself be surprising.

Beyond this convergence, however, the speech is important because of the possibility that today’s progressive movement might once again draw intellectual sustenance from Catholic social thought. From the 1930’s to the 1980’s, this was a matter of routine. And so I might recommend that progressives take a look at the Catholic Church’s teaching on the role of the state in ensuring economic justice.

And again, we might begin with Pope Leo, who charged the state with important functions: it must ensure that workers have regular days off and that working conditions be regulated so as to prevent injury to workers. Labor unions should be encouraged and child labor deterred if not abolished altogether.

These were responsibilities that Pope Leo placed on the state, as the ultimate guarantor of the common good. The assurance of “peace” and “good order” were among the chief duties of the state, and Leo drew from these requirements the affirmative obligation that the state must guard against class oppression (para. 36).

St. John XXIII, in his encyclical Mater et Magistra, published in 1961, developed the ideas found in Leo’s encyclical. The purpose of the state, this holy Pope wrote, is “the realization of the common good in the temporal order” (para. 20). The state must “do all in its power to promote the production of a sufficient supply of material goods.” The state must “protect the rights of all its people and particularly of its weaker members.” Taxation must be fair and just, John XXIII wrote. Education must be made available and accessible. The state must not take the place of individual initiative, St. John XXIII continued, but it must “augment . . . freedom.” John XXIII well recognized that true freedom is not lived in opposition to the state, but rather with the state ensuring the prerequisites for real human flourishing.

I could go on, but I think the point is made. One of the most important contributions that Catholic social thought can make to today’s progressive politics is a theory of the state as guarantor of a just and fair economic playing field. Bernie Sanders and others would be well-advised to draw deeply from this tradition.

In doing so, they would find themselves at odds with the last three-plus decades of political discourse, which has been all about de-legitimizing the state. When Ronald Reagan said in 1981 that “government is the problem, not the solution,” he likely did not believe it himself. But his rhetoric was careless. And surely it stands behind much of the reckless talk and dangerous politics emanating from Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, the Tea Party fanatics, and the Ayn Rand libertarian right.

What progressives must do, in other words, is confront this toxic legacy and reinvigorate the place of the state in American politics. The state serves the common good. Only if we make that case, can we make the further case that the state should protect the panoply of economic rights that we have been talking about — from the right to organize, to the right to a living wage, to the right to enjoy a just division of the goods and material resources of society. Catholic social thought, with its robust theory of the state and its strong conception of justice, provides a rich font of ideas and progressives would be do well to consult it.

02/17/2016

There's an old saying: "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get all dirty, and the pig likes it."

The Republican debate of February 13 broke that rule. The candidates mud-wrestled all evening long, and the results were grim. Indeed, the debate only confirmed my belief that the nominating contest is fast devolving into a race between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The Establishment candidates meanwhile -- Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio -- did themselves no favors.

Let's first perform an autopsy and then assess where the contest goes from there. We must start with Trump. Regrettably, John Dickerson and his co-panelists decided to address the opening question of most of the rounds to Trump. He was asked the first question about filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. He was next asked the first question on foreign policy. The same pattern held true in the third round, which concerned "money."

Dickerson may or may not have intended it, but he and his co-panelists created an atmosphere in which Trump and his answers helped to frame not only the night's agenda, but the issues that will be on voters' minds in South Carolina next weekend. The questioning, in other words, served to frame the contest as a referendum on Trump and Trumpism.

So, what is on the table if the primary becomes a referendum on Trumpism? First there is the Trump style -- bellicose, demagogic, and bombastic. He seethed, he raged, he taunted his fellow candidates and denounced them as "liars."

The audience played along with the show. This the audience should not have done. They booed, they jeered, they catcalled, they behaved like it was ringside at some professional wrestling venue. I half-expected a chair to come flying from one of the balconies. The entire spectacle lacked the decency or decorum demanded of a presidential election.

But there is more to Trumpism than his obnoxious style. There are also his issues. Trump is right to want to protect Social Security benefits. American senior citizens are facing mounting financial difficulties. They have steep levels of mortgage debt, auto debt, and even student-loan debt, some of which is surely the result of co-signing on their children's or grand-children's borrowing. Seniors worked for their Social Security benefits, they earned their benefits, and those benefits should remain untouched.

Trump is also partly-right in his defense of workers' rights. He expressed his sympathies for the 1,400 workers laid off by Carrier Corporation in its recent decision to relocate manufacturing facilities. And, truly, displaced workers need our sympathy and support.

Trump, however, is absolutely wrong to oppose international trade. Rather, we must ensure that future trade agreements make generous provisions for the rights of labor. International trade should become a means of growing the world's standard of living, and that is done by lifting workers up.

But even if Trump is right on Social Security and half-right on workers' rights, he is an utterly unworthy representative of these causes. His racism, his xenophobia, and his obvious emotional instability all disqualify him from elective office. Seniors and workers must avoid the siren song that is Trump.

And this gets us to the heart of Trumpism, which is nativism and xenophobia. Shall we be a welcoming nation? Shall we regard the newcomers in our midst as equally worthy of respect with those whose families have been here for centuries? Trumpism rejects an open and welcoming view of the world, and Trumpism must be repudiated on those grounds.

Unfortunately, the principal alternative to Trumpism, at least within the Republican Party, is also unacceptable. Ted Cruz is rapidly positioning himself as Trump's only viable opponent. Cruz has strong credentials as a lawyer. He is a former Supreme Court clerk and former Solicitor General of the State of Texas. Even before the death of Justice Scalia, he had made the future composition of the Supreme Court a major focus of his campaign.

The sudden death of Justice Scalia now allows Cruz to exploit this particular strength. At least where Republican primary voters are concerned, Cruz carries a certain degree of credibility on judicial matters and he will now stress that part of his resume even more forcefully. He will make the Supreme Court the centerpiece of his candidacy and by extension seek and gain the increasing support of social conservatives.

Like Trump, however, Cruz lacks the capacity and temperament to serve as president. He has few supporters among Republican office-holders and is an extremist on matters like church and state and in his opposition to gay marriage. In his brief Senate career, he systematically sabotaged Congress and prevented action on important legislation, all in a ruthless quest for self-advancement. With this track record, it is hard to see how he governs as president.

The candidates fought intensely over George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. In the end, I don't think this argument greatly influences the outcome of the primary in South Carolina or elsewhere. Aside from ISIS and terrorism, Republican voters are not thinking deeply about foreign policy.

We must remember what is moving the voting public this election cycle. It is commonly described as "anger," and there is certainly a great deal of anger in the air. But behind the anger, there is also despair. Many people really have seen their lives move backwards since the Great Recession -- whether because of lost jobs, or lost benefits, or because of the heartbreak one feels when one's children have it worse than you did. These voters are simply not excited by appeals over who was right or wrong about September 11. They want to know who will make their lives better. And it is this despair that is being cynically and tragically manipulated and exploited by this field of candidates.

The Establishment candidates did a poor job of explaining why they should be elected president. Jeb Bush stood up for his family. He praised his father, he defended his brother, and announced that he "won the lottery" with his mother. In all of this, he sounded like a tin-eared successor to the Habsburgs or the Romanovs, only less intellectually curious and more reactionary. John Kasich came across as decent and well-intentioned, but in over his head. Marco Rubio was, well, himself, all striving, no substance.

To describe this moment in the GOP contest, I must resort to the Greek literature I studied in college. There is Aristophanes, the comic writer, and there is Sophocles, the tragedian. Truly, this contest is veering between these two extremes. On the one hand, there is a dark, absurdist quality hanging over this field. "Cloud Cuckoo Land" was the imaginary republic Aristophanes dreamed up as his plot device in The Birds, and you can close your eyes and imagine anyone of these candidates reigning gloriously in that comic-opera land of myth and make-believe.

Still, beneath the humor lies unspeakable tragedy. This nominating contest is proving to be the final denouement of the fates and frenzies that were set in motion a half-century ago when Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon implemented their infamous southern strategy. They unleashed the hellish hounds of racism and resentment that is now tearing apart the right wing.

Cruz or Trump -- one of these men is likely to emerge as the standard bearer of what was formerly one of America's two great political parties. And the American Republic will be the poorer for it.

01/14/2016

The United States once enjoyed a governing policy focused and framed by a strong conception of the common good. From the 1930's to the close of the 1960's, there existed a bipartisan consensus that supported the proposition that American prosperity depended crucially on a government that ensured the prerequisites for human flourishing. A robust safety net protected the needy from destitution. A strong system of public education shepherded several generations of Americans through the schools and into responsible adulthood. Social Security alleviated at least some of the fear of penury that accompanies old age, while Medicare strove to meet the needs of senior citizens for health care.

This was a social contract that was largely drafted and implemented by Democrats, but even Republican administrations respected it. Dwight Eisenhower made peace with the "liberal consensus," and Richard Nixon even expanded its reach, especially in the area of environmental legislation. Only a few dissident right-wingers, men like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, objected.

Beginning in 1980, however, with the election of Ronald Reagan as President, this social contract was attacked in the name of radical individualism. The government itself was declared by Reagan to be "not the solution" but the "problem."

We are now the heirs of Reagan's sorry legacy. Our public education system has been starved for decades. The profit motive has been introduced into places where it doesn't belong, such as the operation of privately-run prisons. The new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, is on record as seeking the privatization of Medicare. Many Americans plainly feel the need to reverse these ominous trends.

Indeed, it is the intuitive sense that our social contract must be renewed and that the common good must again become the focus of our political system that explains the polling success Bernie Sanders is presently enjoying. When he announced his candidacy for the White House, few expected a rumpled seventy-something from Vermont to run a credible campaign. Yet his poll numbers continue to improve in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Let's consider some of the ways in which Senator Sanders proposes to restore the social contract. Probably the best place to start is education. Nothing is more vital to the future of America than a well-educated public. And it is fair to say that none of the presidential candidates, in either party, knows the needs of primary and secondary education more directly than Bernie Sanders, who actually taught pre-schoolers in the middle 1960's as part of the Head Start program.

Importantly, Senator Sanders knows that primary and secondary education is not only about acquiring knowledge and skills but is also about establishing the context for success. He would tackle the disparities in funding that are the cause of unequal educational outcomes by moving away from local property taxes as a principal means of funding the schools. Teachers, he insists, must be adequately compensated for the vital role they play. And the "teach to the test" mentality created by the No Child Left Behind program should be replaced with educational methods that arouse curiosity and engage children in the learning process.

Higher education, Sanders insists, must be treated as a basic right. Indeed, it is regarded as a basic right in most other developed nations and is generously subsidized for that reason. To ask "who pays for free college"? is not the best question to pose. Much better to ask, "who benefits from low-cost college?" And there the clear answer is that nearly everybody does. Students benefit, of course, but so also do taxpayers and homeowners. After all, a well-educated workforce is a well-paid workforce, better able to pay taxes. And a generation of graduates not saddled with mortgage-level student-loan debt can buy homes and establish independent lives of their own.

Bernie Sanders also knows that we cannot restore the social contract without renewing our commitment to civil rights. African-Americans suffer disproportionately at the hands of the state. They are more likely than others to be the victims of police violence. And they have also been made the target of de-humanizing attacks by extremist elements, such as the neo-Confederate terrorist Dylann Roof who committed an act of mass murder in a Charleston, South Carolina, house of worship.

We need better police training. We must stop racially-motivated terrorist attacks like Dylann Roof's. And once again we must ensure that African-Americans enjoy the political franchise. An activist Supreme Court should not tamper with the Voting Rights Act. Early voting needs to be restored where it has been limited or eliminated. And discriminatory voter ID laws ought to be repealed. Bernie Sanders has made these central issues in his campaign. And if we are to have a social contract good for all Americans, these are steps we must take as a nation.

Economic and social justice are the final parts of the social contract Bernie Sanders is offering the nation. That is a broad rubric so one might do well to highlight a few signature proposals.

First, Senator Sanders is proposing to increase the minimum wage to restore it to what it was once intended to be -- a living wage. The minimum wage, he insists, should be raised gradually, over a period of years, to fifteen dollars an hour. Such a move is advisable for several reasons. Most importantly, of course, is that it will reward people who perform some of the most thankless jobs in American society for the indispensable work they do and will ensure that they no longer labor for starvation wages. But it will also increase their spending power.

Economies benefit when consumers have sufficient resources to spend. Right-wing economists perennially complain that increases in minimum wages kill jobs. We have had the minimum wage for eighty years and if their logic worked our unemployment rate would now be astronomical. Higher wages do not kill jobs, but they do lead to greater spending, and in a world where deflation seems a bigger threat than inflation, we should all want that form of stimulus. If I have one quarrel with this proposal it is that allowing the minimum wage to be raised gradually may blunt some of its beneficial effects.

Second, Sanders promises to reform Wall Street. He would break up any bank deemed too big to fail. No business must ever be allowed to expand to such a gargantuan size that its failure threatens the health of the economy. He would also tax high-frequency electronic trading, which serves no real social utility and only introduces needless risk into the economic order. I would suggest to Senator Sanders that he might also consider revitalizing the antitrust laws to serve the purpose for which they were intended -- the creation and preservation of competitive market environments for the benefit of the public at large.

Third, Sanders asserts that health care is a human right and must be so regarded at law. He advocates for the adoption of a single-payer system which he has also described as "Medicare for all." We know that single-payer works. It has worked well for Medicare and it works well in other nations. I can personally attest to that. I have done much international travel and have twice had to receive medical treatment abroad. I found the care that I was given under single-payer systems to be prompt, high quality, professional, and inexpensive, even for a foreigner.

In an ideal world, progressives and family-values conservatives alike should be able to support single-payer health care. There is no greater threat to family integrity and well-being than inadequate health coverage. In 2013, medical costs were the reason 1.7 million households filed for bankruptcy. The Affordable Health Care Act has mitigated this problem, but many families still find health care costs an impossible financial burden.

News Flash: Medical costs do not force families into bankruptcy in other nations. Medical costs remain a pressing social problem that we must address here at home, and Senator Sanders' plan is certainly worth considering.

Will Bernie Sanders win the nomination while running on this platform? Can he win a general election? There was a time when Democrats succeeded with just such ambitious programs. Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson come to mind. Certainly, in this election cycle the American public appears readier than it has been in two generations to return to its progressive heritage.

01/06/2016

Ten weeks -- ten weeks from today puts us in mid-March. And by the time we reach mid-March, we shall have a good sense of the outcome of the GOP presidential primary. Predictions are always a hazardous undertaking yet their allure may be irresistible. So, here is my best judgment as to the way in which this strangest of all nominating contests is likely to play out.

Let's begin with the contenders. They are six in number, neatly divisible into two groups, the insurgents and the establishment candidates. Let's start with the insurgents.

Donald Trump has been at the top of most preference polls since the end of summer, 2015. The source of his appeal seems to the connection he has forged with Republican base voters. To be sure, a great part of his campaign is centered on racist and xenophobic themes and he rightly stands condemned for this toxic behavior. But there seems to be something more to his appeal also, and it suggests that his campaign might have staying power.

That "something more" is alienation. The Republican base feels itself alienated from larger American society. Much of this alienation is ideological. The base simply rejects many elements of contemporary society, from gay marriage to the Affordable Health Care Act. But the base's alienation is more profound than political disagreement with the ideals of mainstream society. Many base voters perceive, rightly or wrongly, that their economic status has grown less secure since the Great Recession of 2008. They see themselves as left behind, facing a stagnant present and a bleak future.

The rise of an alternative conservative media has only heightened this sense of estrangement. Take a look at Breitbart sometime, or at Newsmax. Yes, their writing is sophomoric, and their "news coverage" distorted. But their goal is not an unbiased presentation of events but the capture of market share. They want to be the news providers to the Republican base.

Long before there was a Donald Trump, the coverage of public affairs in this alternative media created an environment in which Trump's message could find an enduring home. Trump's new advertising campaign seems designed especially to appeal to the alienated consumers of alternative news. He is reinforcing his message in a way designed to keep his campaign strong going forward.

But will Trump's campaign be strong enough to prevail as the standard-bearer of the insurgent right? To answer that question, we must consider Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. Senator Cruz is the insider who most closely captures the alienation of the Republican base. He is a fine lawyer, who has argued before the United States Supreme Court. He is a sitting United States Senator. But he has built his career not on legislative accomplishment, nor on social problems solved, or on deadlocks averted.

No, he has risen to his standing in the polls on the basis of obstructionism and manufactured crisis. He has condemned his own Party's leadership and has, at the slightest provocation, called for the de-funding of the government. To someone outside the right-wing fever swamps, this conduct appears to be folly, but again, to an alienated base he comes across as authentic.

But Cruz' support extends beyond a disaffected hard core right wing. He also appeals to conservative evangelicals. An important key to whatever success he enjoys in the next two months is David Barton, who heads one of his superpacs. Barton is a self-styled historian whose book "The Jefferson Lies" was withdrawn from publication for its many misstatements. Still, Barton is an influential figure in conservative circles, and through Barton, Cruz can appeal to voting groups that Donald Trump would find unreachable.

The final candidate of note is Ben Carson. His star has faded nationally, but he has two important assets that can serve him well still: money in his campaign coffers and the support of many home-schoolers, nationwide but especially in Iowa.

These three contenders face off against three establishment candidates. Superficially, Marco Rubio might be the strongest candidate, but Rubio has problems that his opponents are beginning to exploit. He comes across as insincere. Furthermore, serious questions about his ethics are now being asked. There are, in other words, obstacles to a potential Rubio nomination that may or may not be successfully surmounted.

That leaves Chris Christie and Jeb Bush. Christie has stage presence. He speaks forcefully and articulately, and he seems able simultaneously to appeal to an old-fashioned "law-and-order" conservatism and to more moderate voices in his Party. Jeb, on the other hand, seems to have little going for him, aside from privileged birth, name recognition, and a large supply of cash he raised thanks to his family and party connections.

So, let's get down to predictions. The Iowa caucus occurs on February 1. The current consensus is that the top two finishers will be Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, in that order. If Trump wins, look for him to generate substantial momentum, since no one is expecting a first-place finish. A Cruz win is expected and so will not generate nearly the same excitement.

The race will then be for third place in Iowa. Can one of the establishment figures finish ahead of Ben Carson? If someone does, he will pick up momentum going into New Hampshire. If it is Marco Rubio, that momentum may be particularly strong since many in the media seem ready to anoint Rubio as the natural alternative to Trump/Cruz.

The New Hampshire primary occurs eight days later, on February 9. The polling, which is mostly stale, suggests that Trump is the comfortable front-runner with a group of three or four closely-bunched contenders vying for second place. New Hampshire will either magnify or blunt momentum. If Trump manages a victory in Iowa, he will sweep New Hampshire. Still, the establishment candidates might show unexpected strength. Chris Christie, in particular, might be poised for an upset win.

The race then moves to the South. The South Carolina primary occurs on February 20. Again, the polls have Trump and Cruz running first and second. Cruz is counting on a strong showing by evangelicals and Trump is relying on a surging turnout by non-traditional primary voters. I'll predict a narrow Cruz victory. Cruz has been organizing the state for months and his voters are nearly certain to appear at the polls. The same cannot be said for Trump's potential pool of support.

The Nevada caucus occurs on February 23 and has the potential to create a surprise. A hard-right candidate like Cruz or Trump could fare well in the Silver State, but so might someone like Rubio. But whatever happens in Nevada, it will soon be engulfed by Super Tuesday on March 1, which promises to be equal parts circus, Super Bowl, and Mardi Gras.

On that day, there will be primaries in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Vermont; caucuses will occur in Alaska, Minnesota, Kansas, and Kentucky. Too many states, too many different demographics for one candidate to run the table. Still, given its southern center of gravity, Super Tuesday's outcome will likely leave Cruz and Trump as the two most viable contenders. And after Super Tuesday, it will be a slow, steady, grinding war of attrition for the nomination.

The establishment will be too fractured to challenge Cruz/Trump seriously. Even now, it consistently trails in the polls. I foresee Cruz winning the war of attrition. He will be the nominee because he is the more disciplined candidate, with a superior organization.

Still, there are wild cards that could influence the outcome. Events in January will have a disproportionate impact on the race. Let the stock market sell off by five or seven percent (a perfectly normal, mild correction) and the doom-sayers in the popular business press will be pronouncing the end of days. This can only assist Trump. Similarly, if tensions continue to rise in the Middle East, Trump's candidacy is benefited.

A second key wild card are the January debates. Trump and Cruz's positions are probably set, but the debates will likely play a significant role in determining who emerges as the establishment's standard bearer. As the number of debaters get winnowed to six, I expect Christie to make the most favorable impression.

The race will nevertheless likely come to the following questions: Will Donald Trump's popularity with the base and with occasional voters translate into sustained support at the polls? Will Ted Cruz' organizational strength, his self-discipline, and his reliance on religious right voters propel to him a first-place finish? I have been clear in my opposition to both of these candidates. I am loathe to concede it, but this seems like the most probable scenario with Cruz prevailing for the nomination. And so I fear for the health of the Republic.

10/02/2015

The news that Pope Francis met with Kim Davis raises a series of questions that must be answered urgently. Let's begin with trying to understand what happened. And so we should ask: Did Pope Francis know who Kim Davis is? Was he aware of the consequences that were sure to follow his meeting with her?

On his return flight from Rome at the conclusion of his visit, Pope Francis was asked by reporter Terry Moran of ABC to comment on the facts of the Kim Davis case. While Moran did not mention her by name, he described a situation in which a government official refused to issue "marriage licenses to same-sex couples." The Pope declined to speak to the details of Moran's description of the case but answered in general terms that "conscientious objection" is a "human right."

He elaborated on what he meant by rights of conscience with a reference to the medieval Song of Roland. In that poem, one finds an account of Charlemagne commanding a massed, forced baptism of thousands of non-Christians. "The baptismal font or the sword," was how Pope Francis described Charlemagne's command, and he made clear that compulsion was not for him.

It seems like a good answer. The Pope's response drew from an historical example of Christian extremism -- Charlemagne's policy of forced conversions -- to say that no one should be coerced into professing a belief against her or his conscience.

On its terms, furthermore, it refutes Kim Davis's position. Indeed, if we follow the logic of the papal analogy, it is Kim Davis who is playing the part of Charlemagne. After all, she is an elected office-holder who exercises the power of the state and has used that power to impose her religious views on subordinates and the prospective same-sex partners of Rowan County, Kentucky. Personally, I find it difficult to believe that the Pope was aware of the facts of the Kim Davis case or knew what she stood for when he gave his interview to Terry Moran.

Word, however, swiftly broke that the Pope had met briefly with Kim Davis at the papal nunciature -- essentially, the papal embassy, situated in Washington, D.C. The meeting was fifteen or so minutes long, without interpreters. Reportedly, Francis told Davis to remain strong, advised her to pray the rosary, and handed her a pair of rosaries. Pictures of those rosaries have now gone viral on the internet.

How do we interpret the news of this meeting, which seems so much at odds with the public message of inclusion Pope Francis sought to convey on every step of his journey? It may be that the Pope quite innocently saw no inconsistency in his actions. After all, he met with all sorts of people on his trip without endorsing their viewpoints. But the reality is that the Pope was likely played by others who were aware of the controversy that would attend a papal meeting with Kim Davis and sought to use that controversy for their own ends.

I should state that I am convinced of the Pope's sincerity. He took enormous pains, at every step of his journey to the United States, to bury the culture war. He made no mention of same-sex marriage on his trip, not even at the World Congress of Families. While his stance on abortion is firm, he has also made clear that the old strategy of confrontation has failed. He knows that most women who have abortions do so out of desperation, and he wants to build social structures that relieve that desperation.

In other words, what the Pope plainly wanted from his trip was a re-invigoration of a progressive Catholicism that looked confidently towards the world and the future. His message was compelling: Don't dwell in the past as if it was some golden age and don't demonize the present. Meet people where they are, take risks for the faith, and love one another. This was the Pope's message to individual believers. And to the political order, he advised Catholics to work with all persons of good will, whatever their perspective or way of life, towards the achievement of shared objectives -- the climate change treaty, economic justice, a fairer, more humane penal system.

So I am persuaded that the Pope was played. Who was responsible? Most immediately, Kim Davis and her attorney must be held to account. They are obviously exploitative in the way they are spinning a brief, private meeting.

But one might also surmise that some highly-placed Vatican figures sought to sabotage this papacy in a way that may prove as damaging the Vatileaks scandal was to Pope Benedict XVI. And I have little doubt that the damage will prove serious. The Pope's ambition to build an alliance that spans the political spectrum to work for the common good will now face larger obstacles. The larger secular world, with which he sought to open lines of communication, will view with varying degrees of mistrust. Furthermore, a right wing that seeks to undo most of what Pope Francis stands for -- from the environment to economic equality -- gains greater empowerment. There will doubtless be members of Congress, as the December deadline approaches, who will invoke Pope Francis as supporting the shutting down of the government.

The Pope must therefore take action. Internally, he must make his wrath felt. And then he needs to respond, visibly and unambiguously, because his very public stature has been put at risk.

What steps should Pope Francis take? I can offer two suggestions. The first comes from Francis DeBernardo, the Executive Director of New Ways Ministry. It is about time, DeBernardo writes, for Pope Francis to meet with LGBT Catholics and their families. He was called upon to do so during his visit to the United States and did not take up the invitation. I concur with DeBernardo. Such meetings must take place. In the face of great official hostility, LGBT Catholics have remained faithful to the Church, and that loyalty must be swiftly recognized and acknowledged.

Second, the Vatican is about to host a second meeting of the synod on the family. The first meeting was held in October, 2014, and divided badly over questions such as the reception of Communion by divorced and remarried Catholics and the status of gays within the Catholic Church. Now would be an excellent time to push for greater inclusiveness, beginning with a revision of the Catechism to remove that most offensive provision that describes "homosexual tendencies" as "objectively disordered" (para. 2358).

These are not extravagant requests. They are eminently doable, and should be undertaken, the sooner the better.

08/28/2015

There is a rising tide of nativism washing over the United States at this particular moment. We have seen such waves recurrently in our history. In the 1840s, it was the Know-Nothings, who hated Catholics and opposed Irish immigration and were even responsible for riots and other acts of violence.

In the 1920's, it was the turn of the Ku Klux Klan. Even while these hooded terrorists attacked African-Americans in the south, they also campaigned against immigration on racial and religious grounds. The eastern and southern Europeans then entering the country, they maintained, were impossible to assimilate. They were Catholic, they were Jewish, and most of all they were "un-American." These campaigns succeeded in largely shutting down immigration to the United States for forty years, from the 1920's to the middle 1960's.

Today, we are witnessing what is shaping up to be a sorry rerun of this awful history. Anti-immigrant sentiment has been on the rise in political circles for some time. It was on vivid display in Virginia in last year's Republican congressional primary, when the upstart David Brat unseated Eric Cantor, one of the most powerful men in Congress, on the strength of a thinly-disguised nativist appeal.

The nativism on display today can no longer even be described as "thinly disguised." It is open, it is blatant, and it is foul. Donald Trump, of course, remains the biggest offender. He has spoken in the kind of blunt, racist language that even the defenders of segregation avoided in the 1960's. When talking about Mexican migrants, he has used language like "rapists," and "criminals," to brand and stereotype and demean an entire group of people. He routinely uses the kind of vulgarities that would have made even George Wallace blush.

Trump's gutter vulgarity has drawn the Republican field with him. Ben Carson, who was once a world-class neurosurgeon, has more recently called upon the Department of Defense to use drone aircraft to attack "caves" that immigrants use in their passage across the border. And Carson is supported by the so-called Christian right?

And then there is Jeb Bush. Has there ever been a more inept pretender to a throne since Aethelred the Unready? When criticized for his continued use of the term "anchor babies, he explained that he really meant to apply it to "Asian people," not Hispanics. Good God, what a consummate disaster!

Pope Francis is coming to the United States in just a few weeks. And I devoutly believe that the most urgent task confronting the Pope on his visit is to call the American people away from the poisonous swamp of nativism.

Pope Francis is ideally suited for this task. He has pledged his pontificate to the defense of the marginalized and has made a special concern of his the plight of immigrant peoples. In July, 2013, early in his pontificate, he traveled to the island of Lampedusa, in the Mediterranean, the scene of so many preventable human tragedies. "Immigrants dying at sea, in boats which were vehicles of hope and became vehicles of death." The Pope fairly wept at the dimensions of the horror he confronted.

Pope Francis' trip to Lampedusa was meant to remind Christians of the common origin and destiny of all of humankind. "Cain, where is your brother?" God asked. Cain replied, disingenuously, that he was not his brother's keeper. But, Pope Francis insisted, we are one another's keepers, in the best sense of that term. We have obligations, transcendent obligations, to one another that are not contained or confined by the mere accidents of political boundaries.

In his speech to the European Parliament, in November, 2014, Pope Francis clothed this scriptural appeal in more philosophical dress. Human dignity is not an individualistic but a communal value. We are not isolated beings, without connections or duties to others. Pope Francis relied on this premise to develop a strong argument on behalf of the common good. And an aspect of the common good, he asserted, is a humane response to immigration.

"The men and women" who arrive "daily on the shores of Europe" require "acceptance and assistance." Christianity, of course, has a long and deep commitment to a welcoming hospitality, and Pope Francis appealed to this tradition to summon his audience to action. But he also urged them to solve the root causes of the immigration crisis -- the poverty and the war that has displaced so many people from their homes and driven them to risk their very beings in a dangerous passage.

I encourage Pope Francis to address the language of coarse hatred that is increasingly becoming de rigeur in American politics. No doubt he is far too sophisticated to call out Donald Trump by name. But Trumpism is an ominous trend that must be denounced. More than anything else, Pope Francis must condemn the rising hatred that he represents and espouses.

08/07/2015

Donald Trump was the center of attention in Thursday evening's (August 6) Republican debate, and he was everything one expected him to be. He was crude, he was sexist, he was condescending and insulting -- not just to the American public, but to other nations and allies. He even picked on Japan -- our best and strongest ally in East Asia.

While "the Donald" certainly offers a target-rich environment, I would like to focus in particular on his comments about the way in which he has used his wealth to buy political access. He gave money to many politicians, he admitted, even some of the men sharing the stage with him. When asked, he even acknowledged contributions to Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.

What exactly had politicians done for Trump? Baier was curious. Trump looked for a moment as if he had just walked into a trap. Acknowledge substantial quid pro quo's, and he could trigger an investigation. So he shrugged and said that thanks to his many contributions, he got Hillary Clinton to attend his wedding: "She didn't have a choice, because I gave."

And herein is the problem with the political order. The rich truly are different from ordinary American citizens. They have the wealth and the financial interest to buy access to the political class. As we approach the 2016 electoral season, we need to be mindful that Donald Trump, in his brash, crass, bloviating style managed to get to the heart of the crisis eating away at American politics. He is no reformer. He is the problem, and not the solution. But his utter cynicism made clear the dimensions of the predicament we are in.

America's wealthy super-elites see politics as investment. By and large, they do not donate vast sums of wealth out of some sense of civic duty. No, they put money into super PACS, they give to the limit to individual candidates, they support candidates' foundations and promote their favored causes because they expect something in return. Even the outspoken Donald Trump knows better than to describe what he has spoken about with the politicians to whom he has been granted special attention and access. We are left to imagine. But in our imaginings, we should always bear in mind that catchphrase from modern business -- "ROI" -- "Return on investment." What are they getting back?

What we need from the 2016 election, more urgently than ever, is to return campaign finance reform to the political agenda. Three was a time when the United States had some fairly strong legislation on the books. The modern history of campaign finance reform began in the wake of the Watergate election of 1972, when Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President raised gargantuan sums of money from America's business class -- perhaps as much as ten million dollars from insurance executive Clement Stone, and more exotic, semi-secret contributions from such exotic, semi-secret characters as Robert Vesco and Howard Hughes.

In the wake of Watergate, in 1975, Congress created the Federal Election Commission and empowered the Commission to enforce strict limits on contributions by individuals and political action committees. And in 1976, in the decision of Buckley v. Valeo, there began the long and inglorious history of the United States Supreme Court relaxing those restrictions. The Supreme Court did not precisely declare that "money is speech," but its ruling that certain campaign finance restrictions infringed on free-speech rights came pretty close to saying just that.

Nearly three decades later, in 2002, Congress enacted the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act," better known as "McCain-Feingold," after the bill's two principal sponsors, Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. John McCain's impetus to take action was the result of his involvement as a member of the so-called "Keating Five." This was a group of western senators who had received large and questionable campaign contributions from Charles Keating, a corrupt Arizona banker and real-estate developer. Although McCain escaped formal reprimand (he was criticized for "bad judgment"), he concluded that the system needed repair.

The goal of McCain-Feingold was to reduce the influence of large pools of soft money on the political process. While the Supreme Court has upheld parts of McCain-Feingold, it has also relaxed crucial provisions. Most notoriously, in the case of Citizens United (2010), the Supreme Court declared that corporations enjoyed full political and free-speech rights and could therefore spend money directly on behalf of candidates or issues. A pair of federal appellate decisions have helped to complete the demolition. In Emily's List v. FEC and Speechnow.org v. FEC, courts empowered Super PACs to raise unlimited sums of money from wealthy donors, all in the name of the First Amendment.

Donald Trump's performance illustrates the final consequence of this sorry train of developments. He has, by all accounts, fielded countless calls from politicians in need of money and he has donated generously to many of them. But he is no longer content to be simply another member of the donor/contribution/investor class who helps to finance the modern political campaign. He wishes to become a player himself. On Thursday night, he plainly oozed contempt for his fellow candidates. It is a condescension born of the many backdoor conversations he has doubtlessly had with contenders for elective office. Politicians have genuflected too many times before his throne, for Trump to retain any respect for them now.

I am personally disappointed that other commentators have seemingly not noticed this portion of the Republican debate. For me, these might have been the most troubling moments. I hope for many things from the 2016 election, but two issues seem particularly compelling at the moment: We need to elect a president and Congress who are serious about campaign-finance reform. And we need a Supreme Court that will defer to the judgments of the legislative branch on how to lessen the impact of great wealth on the political process. If politicians try to clean up politics -- a noble cause! -- the Supreme Court should cease being an obstacle.

08/04/2015

The Democratic Party needs a horse race for its presidential nomination for 2016. They require the energy that a serious multi-candidate field brings to the electoral cycle. Primary campaigns, after all, ought to do the following things for a political party: They should frame and focus the campaign on the future. Elections, after all, are usually decided about which party has a more compelling vision of the future. But primaries also serve as seed beds for fresh ideas. Nowhere do policy proposals receive greater scrutiny than in the heat of a campaign. And, finally, primary campaigns generate passion, enthusiasm, and excitement among the Party's supporters and the electorate at large. And general elections are won or lost on the basis of such excitement.

At the moment, the Democratic Party could stand improvement on each of these points. Indeed, the primary campaign can be described as running on parallel tracks that show little sign of intersecting. There is Hillary Clinton, who continues to win the support of a little more than half of the Party. She also fares well when matched against Republican contenders, although her lead is slowly diminishing.

On the next track over there is Bernie Sanders, who is bringing enthusiasm and excitement to the race, as well as some fresh thinking. But while Senator Sanders has a strong and passionate following, he is underfunded and in desperate need of a more robust campaign apparatus.

And, finally, on the third track, there are the other candidates -- Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chafee. Their campaigns seem almost like afterthoughts, which is regrettable, especially where O'Malley is concerned.

There appears, furthermore, to be little planning being done for candidate debates. Times, dates, and places have yet to be announced. This is regrettable. Debates help capture the public's imagination. Yes, debates carry risk -- there is the always-present possibility of a verbal gaffe or other public embarrassment. But debates also allow candidates to sharpen their focus and get ready for that inevitable high-stakes, high-wire-walk-without-a-net that is the general election.

The present situation, it is fair to say, is probably unsustainable. Nature abhors a vacuum just as a presidential election cycle abhors attempts to frustrate an active and engaged campaigning season.

To that end, I would encourage both Vice President Joe Biden and Starbucks entrepreneur Howard Schultz to consider seriously announcing their candidacies for the White House. Both men possess qualities that would serve them well both in a campaign and, more importantly, assist them greatly in governing the country should they ultimately prevail.

Joe Biden was elected Vice President in 2008 after a three-decade career in the United States Senate. During his time in the Senate, he established himself as a key figure in a number of important areas. He has been a strong supporter of the rights of labor and knows in his heart the role labor unions play in sustaining the American middle class. Back in 2012, he did a great job calling out Paul Ryan and the social Darwinist right wing on their plans to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

He thus knows how to stand up to those plutocrats like Jeb Bush who continues calling for the "phasing out" of Medicare. And during his time in the Senate, Biden repeatedly demonstrated his command of foreign affairs. He both served on and eventually chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Howard Schultz would similarly make a strong candidate. His life story is one of triumph against great odds, rising from the housing projects of Brooklyn to build a leading American company. His life and career stand as testament to a quality America desperately needs from its business class -- business, all business, must be about serving the common good. Yes, businesses must make a profit, but not at the expense of human values.

Schultz has spoken out on Ferguson, Missouri, and the crying need to improve race relations in this country. He supports investments in America's educational system. He recognizes that health care is a basic human right. Even during Starbucks' early years, he took steps to make sure that even his part-time employees had access to health insurance.

Biden and Schultz, in other words, would both bring important insights and perspectives to the campaign. Just as importantly, they would reinvigorate the campaign. They would revitalize it, enliven it with new enthusiasm. They would, in other words, help to transform the Democratic presidential nomination into a horse race.

Such a free-spirited campaign, I predict, would not become divisive. This is so for at least two reasons: First, Democratic ideas and Democratic policies are innately attractive to most Americans. Most Americans instinctively support greater access to health care, improved primary, secondary, and higher education, a greener environment, and a more peaceful, cooperative world. Second, the Democratic base is simply not like the Republican base. The American right wing is, how to put it gently? peopled with some rather exotic characters who tend to frighten and put off voters. A wide-open campaign by Democrats, on the other hand, over how best to promote and enhance the American way of life, would more likely build support for the eventual nominee. The Democratic Party -- and indeed, the country at large -- both needs and would benefit from a real horse race.

08/03/2015

The pictures are sad and grotesque. An American dentist and his guide grinning over the remains of Cecil the Lion. Our sympathies run directly to the victim of the hunt, the lion. Walter Palmer, the dentist who killed Cecil, is not the first American to ignite disgust over the slaughter of some of the world's great animals. A little more than a year ago, it was the Texas Tech cheerleader Kendall Jones who posed, armed and in camouflage, her boot resting on top of a lifeless lion.

Big-game hunting has become repulsive. Why? It was not always so. I remember as a child -- the middle-to-late 1960s -- being taken by my parents to the Field Museum in Chicago. We viewed row upon row of glass cases containing big-game specimens shot dead in hunting expeditions. Teddy Roosevelt's sons, as I recall, Theodore, Jr., and Kermit, contributed an especially large quantity of "trophies" to the Museum from their 1920's expeditions across Asia. They even killed a giant panda.

They hunted their prey at a time when big-game hunting was considered sport. That it was ever considered sporting to track down and kill large animals is in need of explanation. For, when viewed in historical context, big-game hunting seems to be an outgrowth of all that was wrong and wicked and distorted about late-19th- and early-20th-century Western culture and society.

This was the era of social Darwinism, after all. Social Darwinism followed a strict creed dictated by the unfettered capitalism of the day: society was naturally competitive -- "red in tooth and claw." The winners were those who accumulated fortunes and controlled vast wealth. The losers, on this distorted ideology, were those who did not succeed and who struggled for their daily bread. Big-game hunting was an expression of this ideology, a way in which the rich and power could travel to distant lands, pantomime acts of conquest, and assert their might and power in ritualized killing.

But big-game hunting represented and reflected yet other noxious ideological currents of that era. Nature, a century ago, was conceived of as an implacable foe, a hostile power that had to confronted, combated, and tamed. Think of the polar explorers and the mountain-climbing expeditions of that day and age. For sure, they dared greatly and accomplished much. They expanded the horizons of human knowledge and inspired heroic acts of courage and will. I remember, again as a child, fairly weeping when I read of Robert Falcon Scott's doomed 1912 expedition to the South Pole. How he finished second in the race to the Pole behind Roald Amundsen, and how he and his crew died in their tents on the return journey, only a few miles from resupply.

While expeditions like Scott's served the cause of science and even stirred the hearts of twelve-year-old boys, they were also fed and fueled by the ambition to subdue nature. Nature was an inhospitable force that had to be made to serve human needs. It was, it goes without saying, also a time of environmental catastrophe. One is reminded of the Salton Sea in southern California, formed in 1905 in the aftermath of a failed irrigation project. The era's big-game hunting was just another aspect of the urge to bend nature to human will and to wring from it the wealth that was stored within.

And finally, course, big-game hunting was a manifestation of colonialism. White Americans and Europeans traveled to exotic lands and slaughtered the local wildlife because they wished to demonstrate their political dominance. They wanted to display their weaponry, their wealth, and their command of the instruments of power over lands and peoples for whom they had little respect.

We no longer live in the world of a century ago. Yes, to be sure, social Darwinism remains a force. It has its defenders, in business, in industry, and in the academy. And our world remains cursed with the effects of the maldistribution of wealth. Innocent children still die in large numbers from malaria, malnutrition, and a host of other problems associated with preventable poverty. On the other hand, great moral voices -- secular and religious -- have spoken against this state of affairs and social Darwinism can no longer be said to command the heights in quite the way it did a hundred and more years ago. We live in a world where many of us, at least, appreciate the values of collaboration, cooperation, and, yes, even sharing.

Nature, furthermore, is no longer viewed as an enemy that we must defeat. We have a century of tragic experience telling us that we must live with and not against the natural world. Scientists report that we are on the cusp of a sixth great mass extinction event -- an extinction event brought about not by runaway volcanic eruptions or by an asteroid impact, but by environmental degradation. Similarly, we are faced with potentially catastrophic climate change, as polar ice caps melt and sea levels rise. We have learned the bitter lesson that a century's worth of hostility to nature has truly baleful and world-altering effects. Big-game hunting as a sign and symbol of that old and discredited way of life seems entirely out of place in the world we now inhabit.

Finally, of course, there is colonialism. We still live with its deplorable effects. Racism, that poisonous fruit of colonialism, haunts us still, in this nation and across the world. People are still made to suffer and die because of their ethnicity. Big-game hunting reminds us, at least at a subliminal level, of those days when wealthy white hunters depleted the landscapes of foreign, distant locales merely to assert their ascendancy and control over other peoples.

Big-game hunting leaves us troubled, I surmise, because it summons us to think of this sordid past. Big-game hunting no longer serves any social utility. The hunters' targets -- lions, elephants, rhinoceroses, and other mega fauna -- are all endangered species. Perhaps big-game hunting will vanish from the modern world, through the force of social criticism if not by positive legislative enactment. And, much more importantly, we should strive to make a better world -- a more cooperative economy, a safer, cleaner environment, and a place where peoples of different ethnic and social and religious backgrounds can live and prosper as equals.

07/06/2015

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is this summer's campaign phenomenon. Consider the crowds he is drawing. In Madison, Wisconsin, he recently attracted a crowd of nearly 10,000 raucous, enthusiastic supporters. This on a beautiful summer's evening when many Wisconsinites are at the lake or on vacation. And in Iowa, he drew 2,500 equally fervent supporters in one of the biggest campaign events to date in that early-caucus state.

Why? Why such success and why so soon? I will suggest that Bernie Sanders has tapped into something very deep in the American psyche -- the realization that America is at its greatest, and at its best, when it is standing for progressive values.

The American progressive movement is not a recent creation. It is now over a century old and tens of millions of Americans lead better lives because of its successes. Let's take a look at just a few of its accomplishments. In the early 1900's, child labor was rampant, and a blight on the American landscape. Progressives in Congress enacted child labor laws in the 1910's, which were struck down as unconstitutional by a conservative Supreme Court in Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918). It took until Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and a more progressive Supreme Court, before this cruelest form of exploitation was finally banished by law.

Think also about Social Security. It was created by progressives in the New Deal to address the crisis of poverty among the elderly. Countless families had lost their means of support as the banks failed and the economy ground to a halt under Herbert Hoover. Families cracked and fragmented under the strain, with individual family members going their separate ways. The old social safety nets of home, and neighborhood, and private charity utterly failed.

It took a progressive administration, Franklin Roosevelt's, to rescue the day. Over the complaints of Republicans, who gloatingly predicted that it would soon bankrupt the nation, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act of 1935 into law. Eighty years and counting, and Social Security is still going strong.

It was the progressive movement in the years after World War II that created the infrastructure that allowed millions to enjoy the American dream. The post-World-War II labor movement brought a middle-class standard of living to America's working class. Great American state university systems -- the University of California system, and the University of Wisconsin -- were tuition free. The University of California only began to charge tuition after Ronald Reagan became that State's governor.

And let us not forget the cause of civil rights. It was the progressive President Lyndon Johnson who shepherded the 1964 Civil Rights through Congress while the conservative Barry Goldwater plotted with Southern segregationists like Strom Thurmond to move the solid South from the Democratic to the Republican column. And we should not forget that it was Lyndon Johnson who signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, as well as the Medicare Act, even as Republicans complained that it amounted to socialized medicine.

So why is Bernie Sanders so popular? Perhaps, I will submit, it is because many see this progressive legacy to be at grave risk. The Republican nominee for Vice President in 2012, Paul Ryan, sought to convert Medicare into a voucher system as part of his Orwellian Path to Prosperity budget. And what about voting rights? In state after state, Republican-controlled legislatures have enacted so-called "voter identification laws" on the pretext that there is a crisis of ineligible voters casting ballots. There is no crisis. It is entirely imaginary, trumped-up. The real purpose behind these statutes, according to civil-rights organizations and the ACLU, is nothing less than voter suppression.

Or consider health care. Senator Sanders recognizes that health care is a fundamental human right. It is recognized as a non-negotiable right by virtually every developed nation in the world. And it is not surprising, perhaps, that these nations all have much healthier populations than America. In 2013, the World Health Organization ranked longevity in the United States at 34th, tied with, among other nations, Cuba. Chile, Slovenia, even Greece, have greater life expectancy than the United States. We can do better.

In contrast to the Republicans, who only want to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, Sanders has proposed a "Medicare For All" program designed to improve access to health care and enhance Americans' good health. Even under the Affordable Care Act, far too many people are uninsured or receive inadequate attention. We need to remember that a healthier America is a more prosperous America.

Sanders is running on other issues, too, that would greatly improve the lives of ordinary Americans -- bank reform, college affordability, and the reversal of that egregious judicial error, Citizens United.

There is a breeze stirring this summer. American progressives perceive that the accomplishments of the last century are in jeopardy. At the same time, aspirations are high. Idealism and faith in our common abilities, after all, are what built the United States into a great nation. Will Bernie Sanders win the Democratic nomination for president? It is far too early to say. Will he reignite a movement for greater social, racial, and economic justice in America? Perhaps he already has.

06/23/2015

It is all to the good that the Confederate flag is now being seen as odious and hateful by most Americans. It truly has been a symbol of hate and injustice going all the way back. In the Civil War it was used to rally slave-holders and their sympathizers to battle. And in the segregationist South of the 1950's and 1960's, it was revived as a means of expressing resistance to the cause of civil rights and equality. It is time to strike those colors once and for all, remove them from the South Carolina statehouse grounds, expunge them from the Mississippi state flag, and banish them from any and all places of honor in American society.

But we should go deeper than asking for symbolic change, as important as that is. I'd like in particular to call attention to a troubling development found mostly in deep red, Republican states, and that is the unholy marriage between Confederate ideology and the Second Amendment.

The bond that unites Confederate ideology and the Second Amendment is the idea of "nullification." This is the belief that the states are the ultimate arbiters of what is or is not constitutional and that the states are thus always free to ignore federal law. States and not the courts, on this warped view of the Constitution, judge what is or is not constitutional.

This ideology has a long and deep and ignoble history. We might begin with John Taylor of Caroline (1753-1824), whom Garry Wills called "the principal theorist of nullification." He was a lawyer and a planter who sought to insulate his home state of Virginia from what he feared as early as the 1790's to be the growing, threatening powers of the national government.

The best way to defend Virginia, Taylor proposed, was to ensure that the states were the final word on what the Constitution meant. States, he argued, always retained the right, if not the responsibility, to disobey the federal government where they believed the federal government overstepped constitutional limits. Taylor meant by this doctrine to strengthen and make secure the system of slavery, from which he personally profited, since Virginia and the other Southern states would always be free to declare null and void any federal law infringing on slave-holders' "rights."

In the 1820's and 1830's, this proposal was worked into a full-blown constitutional theory by John C. Calhoun (1782-1850). Calhoun opposed the federal tariff that was then threatening the profitability of South Carolina's plantation-based way of life. Fearing the implicit threat to the slave-based economy, Calhoun insisted that South Carolina might declare the tariff unconstitutional.

South Carolina tried to do just that in 1832, but backed off this ledge when confronted with federal military intervention. South Carolina climbed back onto that ledge in 1860/1861 when it -- and other Southern states -- seceded from the Union.

These states acted as they did because they believed that the states might judge the federal government and withdraw from the Union as a last resort. Nullification, in other words, was a prominent feature of the constitutional theory that justified the Confederacy. It was a doctrine finally repudiated by the Civil War and by the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

What does this history have to do with the Second Amendment? Simply this: Nullification, a concept that should have died a century and a half ago, has been resurrected from the tomb by gun-rights extremists and is triumphing in legislature after legislature in America's deep-red states.

Consider Kansas. Kansas under the leadership of Governor Sam Brownback, is well known for its extremist politics. Brownback's fiscal policies have wrecked the Kansas economy, Kansas education, and much else. Brownback has sought steady reductions in the state income tax, substituting for it "the highest tax on food in the nation." And what does Kansas have to show for its regressive fiscal policy? While most regions of the United States are enjoying economic recovery, Kansas is not. In May, 2015, a report showed that Kansas lost "nearly 4,000 jobs . . . trailing the national trend."

That is bad enough, a tragedy for the Kansans who are suffering under Brownback's misrule. But just as bad is the gun legislation he has signed. In 2013, the state legislature enacted the "Second Amendment Protection Act." By its terms, the legislation ostensibly prohibits the federal government from enforcing federal gun control laws on Kansas soil with respect to certain classes of weapons.

Alright, you might say, Brownback is an unrepentant extremist. But, unfortunately, Kansas is not an outlier. In recent years, other red states have followed a similar path. Bruce Otter is the 70-something governor of Idaho. He has spent a lifetime in Idaho politics, he is a staunchly conservative Republican in tune with his constituents, but he has never caused anyone to question whether he is tethered to reality. He is not typically prone to conspiracy theories or the other fever dreams that haunt the far right.

But even Bruce Otter has recently felt politically compelled to sign nullification legislation declaring that the federal government lacked the constitutional authority to enforce gun-control legislation within Idaho's borders. And, really, he had little choice. The Idaho nullification statute passed the legislature unanimously.

The neo-nullificationist movement, however, represents a dangerous trend. Grassroots conservatism is no longer part and parcel of mainstream American life. For there is nothing about nullificationist ideology that represents American values. It is the failed constitutional theory of a treasonous movement -- Southern secession. Its modern-day resuscitation can only be seen as a kind of existential alienation on the right.

I am grateful to see Nikki Haley and Mitt Romney and other Republican leaders finally take a stand on the Confederate flag. It is an unambiguous symbol of hate and sedition and needs to be retired to a museum where its true place in American history might be explained.

But Republicans must go beyond the flag debate to confront the simmering ideological stew on the far right. The idea of nullification in its own way is equally odious. It is a failed constitutional theory that should likewise be banished to a museum of legal antiquities. It has no place in modern-day America. It is frightening that such an idea has captured the imagination of so many Republican legislators. It is an idea that the national GOP leadership should repudiate, and soon. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and the rest of the candidates, we're talking to you.

06/15/2015

It is a line repeated with tiresome regularity in right-wing circles: Pope Francis has no business proposing solutions to the crisis of global climate change. He is not a scientist, they say. He should stick to morals and to matters of faith and doctrine.

Pope Francis' defenders point out that climate change is a moral question. If the destruction of the planet's ecological health is not a moral concern, then what is? But while climate change is certainly a moral issue, it is something much larger and more significant than that. It is a threat to the common good of the world It is menacing the globe's well-being and even the integrity of nations. There are the island nations, of course: the Maldives, Fiji, the many islands and atolls of Micronesia, of course.

But even the Cape Verde Islands and Tonga are at grave risk. It is not a coincidence that Pope Francis conferred the rank of cardinal on Arlindo Gomes Furtado (Cape Verde Islands) and Soane Patiti Paini Mafi (Tonga). They are the first cardinals to represent these small nations, but they have clearly been given a responsibility to the world: to stand at the front line of looming climate catastrophe and carry the message of a world at risk to all of humanity.

Even the world's superpowers are not immune from the effects of climate change. Climate change is disrupting agriculture and water supplies in China. It is melting the Siberian permafrost and releasing thousands of tons of trapped methane in Russia. And it is eroding American coastlines and threatening harbors and beaches close to home. There is no question -- the world is at risk.

Pope Francis now means to address this growing crisis and he intends to do so in the name of the common good. As we look forward to his message, we should understand something of what is meant by the "common good" as Catholics use this term. For I predict that we shall hear this term mentioned frequently in the weeks and months ahead.

The "common good" is a term that has an ancient meaning and Popes have long invoked that ancient heritage. The idea of the common good can be traced as far back as Aristotle. Aristotle maintained that there were certain concerns so widely shared that it was uniquely the community's responsibility to address them. Thus, the community was supposed to see to the common defense, prosecute crime, and ensure that the marketplace operated fairly and to the benefit of all. The community should aim, in other words, at creating the conditions that allowed its members to lead "the good life."

This is not the way contemporary Americans view politics. Politics, as it is widely understood and practiced today, is about satisfying individual interests and wants. Politics in the United States is about short term fixes and quick solutions. It is missing the sober, long-term thinking that comes with reflection on the common good. Just from the standpoint of thinking about problem-solving, I suspect Pope Francis will have some important things to say.

When Pope Francis speaks about the defense of the common good later this week, he will, furthermore, be joining a long line of pontiffs who have used this mode of reasoning to advocate for a better world. The modern papacy might be said to have its origin with Leo XIII (1878-1903). Leo inherited a papacy in deep disarray following Pope Pius IX's military defeats and the loss of the papal states. But Leo had the foresight to realize that the papacy might be rebuilt, not on geographic ambitions or political expedience, but as the conscience and moral voice to the world.

Leo XIII most famously appealed to the conscience of the world in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum (best translated as "On Revolution"). Writing near the end of the Industrial Revolution, he feared a death struggle between two opposing camps: the plutocratic captains of industry against socialism. Leo sought a middle ground, most especially by stating a vigorous case for the rights of labor. This much, he said, was demanded by the common good.

Subsequent popes made use of similar arguments, especially on the questions of economic development and justice. St. John XXIII was especially emphatic on these themes. In Mater et Magistra (1961), good Pope John endorsed the modern welfare state: nations today, he asserted, must provide social security and disability for those too old or otherwise unable to work; and they must also commit to ensuring the well-being of workers and farmers.

Pope Paul VI and Benedict XVI both fit firmly within this tradition begun by Leo and advanced by John XXIII. In 1967, Paul VI promulgated Populorum Progressio -- on Human Progress. Recognizing the breakdown of traditional societies, Paul recommended building just social structures to assist in the transition to modernity. Education, just and fair wages, the promotion of human development and flourishing, these were the goals Paul VI called on the world to meet. "Freedom from misery" (para. 6) was his ambition. And in Caritas in Veritate ("Love in Truth," 2009), Pope Benedict XVI warmly restated Paul's lofty ideals.

All of these documents were issued in the name of a global common good. Like his predecessors, Pope Francis sees himself as uniquely empowered to explain and defend the common good. What he is about to do, in other words, is not revolutionary. Popes have long spoken in the way that Francis is about to. But while his defense of the common good is traditional, he is expanding its focus. His vision now takes in the whole question of planetary health.

And, truly, global climate change presents questions about the common good in new and powerful ways. Climate change affects all alike. It crosses boundaries. It threatens not merely humanity but other species and forms of life. The "common" in common good, in other words, is about to receive its most expansive definition -- now encompassing not merely local or national communities, but the entire world.

I expect this week to see Pope Francis reinvigorate the long-standing practice of Popes to speak constructively about the common good. Let us hope it is to good effect.

05/14/2015

Donald Trump has teased the voting public before. He has flirted several times with the possibility of running for president. In 2012, he even rose to near the top of some early opinion polls. Each time, however, Trump backed away from an actual candidacy. Indeed, there are many who believe that these quadrennial presidential flirtations are nothing more than a marketing ploy. What better way for the ever-theatrical Trump to draw attention to his name? And since his name is his brand, success demands that it must always be in the public's mind.

But what if this time is different? What if Donald Trump surprises the experts and decides to run? There are some reasons to believe that he might be ready to do that. Just a few days ago, he said that he might soon announce a "big surprise." A couple of months ago, he announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee and indicated a reluctance to renew the contract on his television show The Apprentice. And, furthermore, Trump has hired campaign staff -- in Iowa, in New Hampshire, and in South Carolina, three early caucus and primary states. Serious campaign staffers are people who depend on their reputations for their livelihood. Presumably, they would not enlist on a fool's errand.

So, will Trump seek the Republican nomination? And, more to the point, what are his odds of success?

Contrary to what many people think, I believe that Trump has a decent chance of winning the nomination should he decide to pursue it. Let's review the issues that Trump has hinted he would run on.

He has repeatedly indicated his strong support for preserving Social Security and Medicare. This would seem to be a no-brainer, of course, except that it flies in the face of Republican orthodoxy. Paul Ryan's infamous budget (the Orwellian "Path to Prosperity") has targeted those programs for years. The most recent iteration of this misbegotten budget would privatize Medicare and turn it into a voucher system by 2024. Seniors are a vulnerable demographic. They should not be made to navigate the intricacies of a voucher system.

By running on the promise to preserve Social Security and Medicare, Trump would be campaigning against the Republican establishment in the name of protecting the Republican base. The Republican base, after all, is an older demographic. Polls show that among this older demographic Medicare and Social Security are popular ideas. Indeed, the only reason the base has not rebelled against Paul Ryan and his ilk is cognitive dissonance. Older Republican voters by and large do not believe what is in the budget. Trump's candidacy, if it should come to pass, would drive a wedge between establishment and base.

Of course, Mike Huckabee is already trying out precisely this campaign. Huckabee, however, does not have the campaign resources to stir the Republican base from its complacent state of cognitive dissonance. To do that, you need to arouse people, and to arouse people, you need resources -- money, staff, advertising budgets. Donald Trump, should he run, would have these resources at his disposal. If he ran on Social Security and Medicare, hard and loud, and showed himself prepared to confront Republican orthodoxy, he might have a winning hand.

Trump has also shown himself opposed to the negotiation of additional international trade deals. Most recently, he has stated his opposition to the creation of the Trans-Pacific free trade zone. He argues that the agreement amounts to an attack on American manufacturing. By lowering tariffs, it would make foreign-made goods more attractive to American consumers at the expense of domestic jobs.

I part company with Donald Trump on this analysis. While I certainly agree that out international trade agreements have favored the interests of capital over labor, I don't believe that the ideal of international trade should be abandoned. I would much prefer to use trade agreements as a vehicle for writing into law protections for labor around the world.

But that is not what Donald Trump is proposing. He would scuttle the deal altogether. He sees it as a part of an ongoing narrative -- the hollowing out of the American heartland.

Again, Trump is positioning himself as radically opposed to the Republican establishment. Should he mount a campaign like this, furthermore, he runs the risk of playing with the dangerous fires of demagoguery. That said, opposition to free-trade deals is a position held by many in the Republican base. It is an issue that could carry the day in a fractured field. And, again, Trump has the resources to drive this case home.

I would not and could not vote for Donald Trump. For me, his dabbling with "birtherism" in 2012 simply went too far. Birtherism was always a conspiracy of the fringe. Trump was among those responsible for moving the mainstream of American politics a little closer to the lunatic fringe. He is not someone I would want to see occupying the Oval Office.

Still, if Trump is serious, if he is not just stroking his ego or promoting his brand name, he has formidable assets. If he showed himself willing to campaign forcefully on Social Security, Medicare, and free trade, he could make a competitive run for the Republican nomination. And in the free-for-all that 2016 promises to be, a "competitive campaign" may be all that is needed to snatch a nomination that is looking more and more like a rugby scrum.

05/06/2015

In 2008, Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas made a strong run for the Republican nomination for president. He won the Iowa caucus and carried over four million popular votes across the length of the Republican primary. In the wake of the nominating contest, there were even some commentators who suggested that it was Mike Huckabee, not Mitt Romney, who should be perceived as the heir-apparent for the 2012 Republican nomination.

Still, Huckabee decided to sit out the 2012 contest, apparently because of a desire to increase his and his family's financial security. He had his Fox News gig, his speaking engagements, and even lent his name to some dubious "alternative" treatments for diabetes. Now, however, he has joined the ever-growing field of contenders for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Does he have a prayer? It's legitimate to pose the question in just this way because it is clear that Huckabee wishes to make the case that his own candidacy best represents the way fundamentalist Christians read the Bible and see the world. He wants to be their candidate, and to be the bearer of their "biblical" worldview in the political arena. His first career, after all, was as a Baptist minister.

To get a sense of the campaign he is likely to run, we should take a look at his new book, "God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy." The title alone is evocative. He wants to be the candidate of traditional small-town America. He disparages New York as little better than "Sodom and Gomorrah" (p. 2). Fly-over country, that is where Huckabee finds the true America, the places where Second-Amendment "liberties" are celebrated, and people are free to eat fried foods and "sawmill gravy" without government intrusion.

The heart of Huckabee's book, however, is religious. Its main thesis is that fundamentalist Christians have become the new politically dispossessed. It is a thesis that needs to be looked at carefully, because it simply isn't true.

Let's start with Chapter One, entitled "The New American Outcasts." The protagonist of this chapter is Dan Cathy, the President of the Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain. In the summer of 2012, Cathy publicly expressed his opposition to same-sex marriage and was immediately attacked by leading political figures.

But Dan Cathy was hardly helpless. Huckabee recalled how he came to Cathy's defense. He proposed on his national television show that August 1, 2012, be made into "Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day" and urged his viewers to patronize Cathy's stores on that day. The customers came, bought their sandwiches, and Cathy undoubtedly earned a tidy profit.

Huckabee's larger point, that Dan Cathy represents a new type of American outcast, is bizarre. He is the Chief Executive of a major American corporation with over 1,600 stores. When he took a political stand, he met with political resistance. Politics is like that -- you can't always get your way. Sometimes you even lose. But Dan Cathy had highly-placed allies of his own. A former presidential candidate -- Mike Huckabee -- used his own prestige and political capital to drive business to Cathy's stores.

"Outcast" is the wrong word for Dan Cathy, just as it would be the wrong word to use for Hobby Lobby. Cathy was -- and remains -- a man of wealth and influence who has access to political leaders most Americans can never hope to enjoy.

It is plain, however, that Huckabee intends to make opposition to same-sex marriage a centerpiece of his campaign. Again, we can take a look at another chapter from his book, this one entitled "Same-Sex Marriage and the Law (God's and Man's)." Huckabee employs all of the usual tired, threadbare arguments against same-sex marriage. If you depart at all from monogamous, heterosexual marriage, you will lose the ability to draw lines. Why not groups of men marrying one another? Or groups of women? Why not polygamous marriage (one man and many women, or many men and women all at once)?

He reads the Bible as if the only form of marriage it approved was monogamous heterosexuality. Even a casual reader of the Book of Genesis, however, will understand it as approving of alternative forms of marriage such as the polygamy of the patriarchs.

Still, one sees the outline of a political strategy in the way Huckabee states his case. He wants social conservatives to feel under siege, to feel embattled, to have a sense of alienation. It is out of that sense of alienation that Huckabee hopes to build his movement.

I tend to think that his message of unrepentant social conservatism will fail. It will fail for at least two reasons. First, Huckabee is not the only social conservative in the race. Ben Carson has been running an effective stealth candidacy for months and coalescing support around a social conservative message. So also has Ted Cruz. Both of these candidates know how to appeal to the alienation and isolation of social conservatives.

More importantly, however, I think Huckabee will fail because social conservatism is increasingly a spent political force. There was a time -- thirty years ago, even twenty -- when religiously-motivated social conservatives like Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed commanded instantaneous national attention. In those days, it seemed like the energy and the enthusiasm was with them.

But we have since witnessed a demographic changing of the guard. Now the supporters of same-sex marriage are the ones with the excitement and the enthusiasm and the clear mandate of public opinion. Mike Huckabee will not ride social conservatism to the Republican nomination for president.

Still, I do believe that Huckabee does have a "prayer" at winning the nomination, though perhaps not much more than that. And that is through a message of economic populism. He instinctively understands that substantial portions of the Republican base are not well off. Especially in the South, they are older, and can best be described as working class or lower-middle class. Quite rightly, they see themselves as economically insecure.

And so Huckabee has come out against those Republicans -- like Paul Ryan or Chris Christie -- who would cut Social Security or Medicare. And he's stated his forceful, uncompromising opposition to additional free-trade agreements. Sounding very much like Ross Perot, Huckabee wants to present himself as the defender of American jobs against the large multi-lateral corporations.

Most Republicans are either unable or unwilling to state the case for economic populism. Can you imagine Mitt Romney ever saying anything remotely like this? This willingness to say things against "Republican type" may make Huckabee one of the more interesting contenders in the race.

In the end, of course, I would not vote him. I think he is profoundly wrong on same-sex marriage. And while I agree with him on Social Security and Medicare, his overall anti-government message is at odds with his selective desire to defend these programs. It is, after all, the government that provides Social Security and all of the other social-safety-net programs that, yes, even Mike Huckabee's constituents rely on. We should be in the business of building a stronger, more robust government, one that guarantees universal health care and access to higher education. But that is a story for another day.

04/15/2015

It did not receive nearly the attention it should have. In the last five weeks, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who is the Holy See's chief diplomatic representative to the United Nations, has issued calls for organized military responses against Boko Haram and against ISIS. In both cases, he spoke of the need to show compassion to the victims of these groups, insisting that mercy requires the protection of innocent life.

Thus in talking of Boko Haram, he denounced the group's "merciless acts." They are committing "war crimes and crimes against humanity." It is the responsibility of the "involved States" to act decisively against this threat and it is a duty of "the international community" to show "solidarity" against this criminal enterprise.

In early March, Archbishop Tomasi spoke with similar force against ISIS and called, once again, on the world community to halt the encroaching expansion of this group. He described the actions of ISIS as "genocide" and emphasized that it was the world's responsibility "to stop this kind of genocide." He insisted, moreover, that it was not the West's duty alone to act against ISIS and indicated that the Muslim nations of the Middle East should also become involved. And, he stated, any armed response must finally be taken "under the aegis of the United Nations."

Archbishop Tomasi is an experienced diplomat, holding a high-level appointment. He would not speak in this way without a clear mandate that extends to the Pope or at least to the papal Secretary of State. The Archbishop's warnings, however, raise an important question: Should the papacy encourage the use of force, no matter how compelling the morality of the cause?

There is good reason for the papacy to be very careful when making this case. We might begin with the Crusades. The Crusades were, after all, launched in the year 1095 in a sermon of Pope Urban II, who called on the Christian knights of Europe to "liberate" the Holy Land from Muslims. The Pope assured his listeners: He was not the one actually calling for the Crusade. It was Christ, speaking through him, who issued the summons.

Pope Urban's call was met with a rush of enthusiasm. But even before the crusading armies descended on the Middle East, they committed their share of crimes and depredations, including pogroms against Jewish communities in Europe. Between 1095 and 1291, an estimated seven to nine crusades were put in motion with the object of establishing Christian rule in the Middle East (historians differ on what military actions counted as crusades).

In the end, the Crusades not only failed in permanently establishing Christian rule in Palestine, but the whole idea of crusade was hijacked for truly tawdry political ends. In the early 13th century, Pope Innocent III launched a crusade against the Albigensian religious movement of southern France. In the 1240's, Pope Innocent IV declared a crusade against his political rival, Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor.

Popes also regularly fought wars in defense of the papal state. The papal state received its first territorial definition in the eighth century and encompassed, at its greatest extent, a substantial part of northern and central Italy.

Some of these papal conflicts are the stuff of legend. One thinks, for example, of Pope Julius II (1503-1513), who organized a military campaign against the Republic of Venice while simultaneously commencing the construction of St. Peter's Basilica.

One also thinks of Pope Pius IX (pope 1846 to 1878). He was driven from Rome in 1848, during that year of European upheaval, and restored to the papal throne thanks to French military intervention. At its height, in the 1860's, the papal army under Pius' command might have numbered as many as 15,000 troops. And in 1870, it all came undone as Giuseppe Garibaldi's army defeated the papal forces and brought all of the Italian peninsula under secular rule.

I personally consider the loss of the papal states one of the great blessings to befall the Holy See, and the Catholic Church at large. It freed the popes from the messiness of day-to-day politics and allowed them to develop their modern role as voice of the world's conscience.

The papacy, acting as the world's conscience, has spoken out with particular force against war in the years since World War II. When Pope Paul VI visited the United Nations in 1965, he issued his famous call, "No more war, war never again!" Pope John Paul II was similarly outspoken in his opposition to war. He opposed the 1991 Gulf War, waged against Iraq to free Kuwait. John Paul II genuinely believed that diplomacy and non-violent concerted action against Saddam Hussein's regime could have averted the bloodshed of war.

And 12 years later, in 2003, John Paul II brought the whole prestige of the papal office to bear against George W. Bush in the lead-up to that President's decision to invade Iraq. The Pope's diplomatic efforts even included sending a special emissary to meet with the President and encourage him not to follow through with the attack. John Paul II's efforts regrettably failed, George Bush launched his war, and catastrophe followed.

Pope Francis' early statements on war were consistent with those of his predecessors. In 2013, he opposed an American-led attack on Syria and even called for a world day of fasting and prayer in an effort to prevent bloodshed. This was a noble effort that did, in fact, succeed. War was averted and lives were saved.

I can understand the impulse behind Archbishop Tomasi's summons to the world community. Boko Haram and ISIS are truly nihilistic and blood-thirsty groups. And action against them is not like a war among states, which always poses the risk of recourse to disproportionate means and methods. Action against Boko Haram and ISIS would be more on the order of a police action, an effort to shut down bloody-minded bands of killers operating in a lawless corner of the world.

But even if action against these two groups does not rise to the level of a war among states, it is still a call to arms. Even if Archbishop Tomasi did not directly call for armed intervention, his well-crafted circumlocutions did the job nicely. His statements about ISIS appear under the headline "Vatican Backs Military Force to Stop ISIS." His call to move against Boko Haram bears a similar headline: "Holy See Calls For Swift Action Against Violent Extremism In Africa." These are not headlines which the Vatican has repudiated.

This development leaves me very uneasy. On the one hand, Boko Haram and ISIS are committing horrible crimes. They are burning people alive, selling persons into slavery, and killing groups of people -- Christians and Yazidis -- merely for their religious beliefs. These are outrageous deeds that must be stopped. But how should the Vatican state the case against these groups? I believe that it should confine itself to detailing the crimes these organizations are committing. That alone should be sufficient to arouse the conscience of the world. But that is as far as the summons should go. Leave it to the world to take the next step.

02/19/2015

The 2016 presidential campaign is already upon us and the debate is heating up over an unexpected issue -- the theory of evolution. Of course, in an ideal world, evolution would never really become a campaign issue. But the anti-science wing of the Republican Party continues to voice skepticism. Apologists for this wing would dearly like to distract the media and the voting public from what is, frankly, a national if not a global embarrassment.

In truth, the President of the United States needs to be scientifically literate. For the federal government has an important role to play and it is a role that will only grow larger and more complex in the next president's term. It has been a century since the theory of evolution has become settled, incontrovertible science. To doubt evolution at this late date is to reveal oneself to be willfully, invincibly ignorant of basic scientific principles. And there is no room in the Oval Office -- none -- for the scientifically illiterate.

Just consider some of the issues the federal government has recently addressed and is likely to address in the next few years. Let's begin with some recent history -- the Human Genome Project. In 1990, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy and some international groups and organizations commenced work on mapping the human genome -- the intricately-wrought genetic pattern that we all inherit from our ancestors and that makes human life possible. In 2003, the Project was brought to successful completion.

And now look at some of the benefits: "There are now more than 2,000 genetic tests [as of October, 2010] for human conditions." Again, as of 2010, "at least 350 biotechnology-based products resulting from the Human Genome Project are currently in clinical trials." Thanks to prudent management of the Project, its federal financing has proven to be a net plus to the economy: "In just a single year, 2010, genomics-enabled industries generated more than $3.7 billion in federal taxes, and $2.3 billion in state and local taxes." The Human Genome Project, in other words, has proven its worth not only in the way it has enhanced our quality of life, but in its economic returns. It has more than paid for itself and made the world a better place. Now, tell me, would you have preferred a scientific illiterate in the White House?

In the years to come, questions of human genetics are likely to raise compelling public policy concerns. We stand on the cusp of great advances in the field of prenatal genetic therapy. Genetic therapy is showing great promise in the treatment of hemophilia. It is showing similar promise in the treatment of another blood disorder, thalassaemia. Many other advances can be expected.

With advances in genetic therapy come even more complicated questions. Early in February, 2015, the British House of Commons permitted the creation of human embryos from three genetic parents. The purpose of the vote was to allow British hospitals to employ the latest scientific insights in the treatment of mitochondrial disease. Defective mitochondria is replaced by material provided by a third-party donor. The result is a healthy infant with normal life expectancy. When governments come to make judgments on momentous questions like these, don't we deserve scientifically literate decision-makers?

But biology and genetics represent just one small aspect of what will likely be a large range of scientific issues to confront the next president. Let's talk next about quantum computing. In a sense, quantum computing stands where research on the human genome stood just before 1990, when the mapping project was about to be launched. It is a field, in other words, where much basic research still needs to be performed.

Quantum computing relies on phenomena that occur on the quantum scale, such as superposition. Popularized by Schrodinger's cat, which might be both alive and dead at the same time, superposition would be exploited by new quantum computers to work on multiple computations simultaneously, exponentially increasing the number of operations a single computer might perform.

Progress in the development of quantum computers has been slow. Still, there is evidence that the pace is now picking up substantially. "The prospect for useful and profitable quantum computers are good enough to have drawn Google into the game, along with IBM and Microsoft, among others. Several academic groups are also pushing the technology in practical directions. At the Delft University in the Netherlands, for example, the government-backed QuTech Center is bringing researchers together with the Dutch high-tech industry."

Again, it is obvious: in a time of game-changing scientific breakthroughs, we do not want a scientific illiterate in the White House. We don't necessarily need a computer scientist. But we need someone who respects what support for research can accomplish.

And what about climate change? The anti-science wing of the Republican Party continues to shout its opposition. This is not the place to review the science behind climate change. Instead, let's talk a language that the Republican right-wing understands -- money. According to a February, 2015, news story: "Citigroup has set aside one hundred billion dollars to fund environmental projects over the next decade." The announcement added: "The investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects is meant to help reduce the effects of climate change."

Now, Citigroup is not some granola-eating hippie. It's a multinational investment bank strongly motivated by profit. And we are talking about 100 billion dollars -- that's billion, with a "B." The management of Citigroup seems to take the science of climate change as so well-established it is willing to invest many billions of dollars. This is not the time, in other words, to elect a science-denying right-winger to the Presidency.

And we should be clear: The Republican field has a number of anti-science candidates. It is easy to pick on Scott Walker, the college-dropout Governor of Wisconsin who is busy degrading the capabilities of that State's once world-class university system. But we must include in the mix Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Ted Cruz, and Dr. Benjamin Carson who should know better than to hang out with the anti-evolution crowd.

Their defenders will say that they have to take the positions they do, that their base demands. And that is the problem. It is time for the Republican Party to confront the pathologies of its base. And a great place to begin is on the subject of scientific illiteracy.

02/10/2015

James Gilmore, the former Virginia Governor, has it wrong. Indeed, Governor Gilmore committed a categorical falsehood. What did Governor Gilmore say? He pretended to speak for all Christians when he declared that President Obama's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast "offended every believing Christian in the United States." I am a believing Christian and an American. And I was not offended. In fact, I was greatly cheered by the President's comments. Governor Gilmore is therefore wrong.

But before we go any further, let's be clear about what the President said last Thursday (February 5). He denounced ISIS and the Islamist extremists who carry out their bloody agenda as a nihilistic "death cult." He reminded his audience that terrorism is never approved of by God. He spoke of God's abundant love and God's mercy. All important things to say, and none of it controversial.

But then the President reminded his listeners about some uncomfortable truths. Great crimes have also been committed in the name of Christ. There were the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. These were the great offenses of medieval Christendom. And lest Americans think of themselves immune, the President added that America has also seen its share of misguided religious passion -- slavery and Jim Crow were both justified in the name of Christianity.

All of this is true, of course. Let's just ponder for a moment how terribly bloody some of these events were. In 1095, the leader of Christendom himself, Pope Urban II, called on the knights of Christian Europe to raise an army and free the Holy Land from Muslim control. A large armed force was raised and transported to the coast of modern-day Israel.

Accompanied by a special papal ambassador, Adhemar of Puy, the Crusaders slowly and methodically made their way to Jerusalem. They seized the City of Antioch in the summer of 1098 and slaughtered thousands of its inhabitant. But the main prize was Jerusalem, and that City fell to the invading Crusaders in the summer of 1099.

The massacre that followed was immense and grotesque. The killing continued for days and it was said that the Crusaders were soaked in blood up to their ankles. Men, women, and children were slaughtered without distinction and without mercy. It is probable that upwards of 10,000 persons were put to the sword by the Crusaders.

The Spanish Inquisition, as President Obama declared, was another bloody demonstration of religious zealotry run wild. The Catholic Church had conducted periodic inquisitions since at least the early thirteenth century. But the Spanish Inquisition was another magnitude worse than these earlier efforts, as it represented a twisted fusion of theology and state power. It stood out for its totality and its brutality. Jews and Muslims were its special targets. Thousands were forced to convert, thousands more were put to death, and finally, in 1492, both groups were ordered expelled from the country. Following their expulsions, the Inquisition remained active for much of the sixteenth century, hunting down and killing Protestants.

Religious persecution, furthermore, was a depressing feature of American colonial life. The Salem witch trials are well known. Less well known, however, is Massachusetts' colonial-era persecution of Quakers. The Boston Martyrs, they were called, the four Quakers hanged on Boston Commons between 1659 and 1661 for the crime of their religious belief.

Their executions followed the enactment of a bill by the colonial legislature outlawing Quakerism and requiring all Quakers resident in Massachusetts under penalty of death to renounce their faith or leave the colony. In addition to the four Quakers who were hanged, others were severely whipped or suffered bodily mutilation by the Puritans who were determined to enforce what they thought to be God's law. King Charles II finally intervened in 1661 and commanded the killings to stop.

And as President Obama reminded his listeners, Christian believers played a central role in the justification of slavery. And these were Christians in positions of power and influence. Consider Henry Bidleman Bascom (1796-1850). He was chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives and a leader in the Methodist Church. He also argued that since the Bible condoned slavery, the campaign for abolition lacked a moral foundation.

A mature faith, a strong faith, a faith that can distinguish between flawed humanity and a transcendent message of hope and truth, is not frightened by the realization that believers can sometimes commit grave sins in religion's name. I remain impressed along these lines with Pope John Paul II, who confronted more directly and honestly than most other modern religious leaders the sins committed in the name of religion.

Over the course of two decades, he apologized for the complicity of the Church and Catholics in any number of great human tragedies: He apologized for the violent conquests of Mexico and Peru by the Conquistadores who acted in the name of Christ. He apologized for the pogroms and the torture and the mass executions of the sixteenth-century Wars of Religion. He apologized for the participation by Christians in the slave trade and the silent acquiescence of many Christians in the Holocaust. His decades-long penitential observance reached its climax in a Day of Pardon commemorated in March, 2000, when John Paul II asked forgiveness for the countless times Christians resorted to violence in the misguided defense of their faith.

John Paul II, in these many efforts, which must have been personally very painful, had it right. The message of Jesus is love -- love of neighbor, love of God, and love without limits or boundaries. But Christians do not always know this or act on this message and sometimes they fall grievously, tragically short.

And when I read President Obama's remarks, I see someone whose sincerity I will grant. Like the Pope, the President knows the historical record. And like the Pope, he wished to nothing more, it seems, than to call Christians to live out the full truth of the Gospel. And part of that call must mean confronting -- and learning from -- the sins of the past if only to live more authentically into the future.

01/23/2015

On the flight back to Rome from the Philippines, the papal spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, indicated that Pope Francis was ready for another of his now famous airplane press conferences. And this one did not disappoint. He covered a number of topics, including his future travel plans to the United States -- the East Coast, yes, California and the Mexican border, no. He longs to see Africa and plans another trip to Latin America.

But none of that made news, not after his comments about "responsible parenthood" and "breeding like rabbits." In deciding how many children to have, he urged Catholic couples to take account of the concrete realities of their lives and form their consciences accordingly, in discussion with their pastors. Catholic couples, he said, are under no duty "to breed like rabbits."

Let's explore the implications of this statement. First, strictly speaking, Pope Francis was not saying anything new. In 1968, Pope Paul VI, in promulgating Humanae Vitae, the encyclical on birth control, used the language of "responsible parenthood" to tell Catholics that they were free to limit or space the number of children they wished to have. There is no obligation on Catholic couples to have large families. In truth, there never has been, although certainly that has been the tradition in many places and times.

What Pope Francis did, however, was to use unforgettable language to encourage parental responsibility. Paul VI's carefully-crafted language about responsible parenthood -- like most papal language -- was lost to the public, buried as it was in a densely-written, tightly-reasoned document accessible to experts but not to the laity at large. There are few Catholics with the training, desire, or fortitude to read an encyclical. But when a Pope tells Catholics that the Church does not require them to breed like rabbits, now that gets people's attention.

So, let's assume that the Pope knew just how much attention his "breed like rabbits" remark would receive. Why did he say this? Who was he trying to reach? I might guess that he was appealing to the average Catholic couple. What do we know about average Catholic couples? That they are very, very likely to use artificial means of contraception. It is commonly said that 98 percent of Catholic women have used contraceptives at some point in their lives. This figure is rightly viewed with skepticism, but still it is the case that the vast majority of Catholic women probably have.

So, how to interpret what the Pope was saying to that vast silent majority of Catholic women? It is fair to conclude the following: he is endorsing their sense of responsibility in using birth control, urging them to take another look at the Church, and encouraging them to form their consciences by talking to pastors. He is not changing doctrine. He has not altered the Church's stance on contraception, but he has opened a welcoming door to those who have chosen to use contraceptives for purposes that are not wrong.

This reading of the Pope's remarks is in keeping with his repeated emphasis on the conscience of the believer. Pope Francis wants an adult Catholicism. He does not want a spoon-fed, clericalized faith, with lay Catholics meekly nodding and following priestly directives like brain-dead automatons. He does not want rule-bound robots. He wants Catholics who think for themselves, who pray for guidance, talk to spiritual directors, and consider how the Church's teaching fits the reality of their lives.

Looking forward, Pope Francis' comments on responsible parenthood may be hinting at a theme he will be exploring in his impending encyclical on the environment. We know that he has been working long nights and days for months on this document. We know that it is well-researched and will address issues like man-made climate change. After all, Pope Francis has said as much in many of his public comments.

But his encyclical runs the risk of not being taken seriously if he fails to address questions about population. Large populations consume significant natural resources. The environmental literature makes this point over-and-over again. Pope Francis must come to terms with this argument. My guess is that he may even try to link "responsible parenthood" with larger concerns about the environment and that he has provocatively initiated that conversation with his "rabbits" remark.

Why does Pope Francis continue to use press conferences at 30,000 feet to make so many thought-provoking comments? It seems he is doing so because he wants to change the ways popes talk. Popes for centuries have spoken in a technical vocabulary and then only in carefully circumscribed conditions. Insiders call it theology, those on the outside might call it jargon. The Church's canon law even prescribes the appropriate degree of weight and seriousness particular types of papal speech should be given.

There is no provision in the canon law governing the papal airplane interview. And that may be precisely Pope Francis' point. Jesus did not speak in obscurantist prose under carefully-guarded conditions. And neither will the Pope. He is using these airline interviews as a way to step outside the established conventions and to say things that have always been off-limits. He wants to get conversations started and many of these conversations are about first principles. Let's not forget, when Pope Francis asked that famous question about gays, "who am I to judge?" he did so in an airplane interview.

My hunch is that the Pope relishes the chance to reopen these debates. For too long the Church acted as if major questions had been settled for all time. Questions like the goodness and legitimacy of gay relationships. All that remained was to pronounce anathema. By asking, "who am I to judge?" Pope Francis changed all of that. He did not change doctrine. But the Church also can never go back to business as usual. We are watching a newly-engaged laity see to that.

"You don't have to breed like rabbits." No, Pope Francis has not changed doctrine. But he has started a debate. The contraception question will never be viewed in the same way again. I was in college in the 1970s when my lagging faith was revived by the vigor of internal Catholic debates. The richness, vitality and diversity of an intellectual tradition really and truly engaging the problems of the world was attractive to me. Pope Francis is doing his level best to rouse that tradition from its long midnight slumber. And he is certainly causing many people to give the Church a fresh look.

12/19/2014

The holiday season is always a good time to take stock of the year just past and see what we might anticipate in the 12 months to come. In the case of Pope Francis, it is fair to say that a great deal went well. And not only Catholics but all women and men of good will should feel grateful about that.

Let's start with papal diplomacy. One of Pope Francis' first personnel changes, in October 2013, was to appoint a new Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin. Parolin's predecessor, the catastrophic Tarcisio Bertone, had mishandled things badly. Parolin's quite formidable job was to repair the Holy See's international standing.

Has he ever! The big success story, of course, is the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba, announced Dec. 16. The American refusal to deal with Cuba had lost all meaning with the end of the Cold War a quarter-century ago. Yet this outdated relic lingered, propped up by an irrational fear of angering an aging, wealthy Cuban ex-pat community in South Florida. Thanks to Pope Francis' far-sightedness, thanks also to his Secretary of State's diplomatic skill, the United States and Cuba are on the path to normalizing relations.

Pope Francis has yet to enjoy similar success with his bold attempt to resolve the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. In June, he invited Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the Vatican to pray for peace.

The three men earnestly prayed together and, one might hope, gained new respect for one another. But while peace has yet to result, signs of progress have been spotted. Thus President Peres proposed in September that he and Pope Francis establish a United Nations of World Religions to help resolve religious conflicts around the world.

In the new year, I expect further diplomatic breakthroughs. I strongly suspect that by next Christmas we may see the Catholic Church enjoying normalized relations with the Chinese government. I was in China this summer, lecturing at one of the universities. I took time to visit the Beijing Cathedral. It was a warm Saturday afternoon in July. I met with a couple of priests and got to see a youth group. The priests struck me as genuinely devout men, both anxious and very pleased to be speaking with a visiting American Catholic. The youth group was amazing. Around fifty or so teen-aged boys, dressed in bright blue t-shirts proclaiming "God Is Love" in English, I watched them sing hymns and pay their respects at the Cathedral.

The Chinese State has its concerns with religious movements and Francis and his Secretary of State will find it difficult to navigate these issues. Still, I think it can be done and it will be done.

More difficult still for Francis will be healing internal divisions in the Chinese Catholic Church. The Chinese Church is presently divided between a Patriotic Church, whose bishops are appointed and supervised by the government, and an "underground" Church that subsists outside of approved circles. Both groups have produced genuinely holy women and men. Both groups have suffered under the regime, although the underground Church has borne the lion's share of persecution. Merging the clergies of these two churches, smoothing over the all-too-human resentments that percolate just beneath the surface -- these tasks will require real diplomacy.

Will Pope Francis experience any other diplomatic successes in 2015? In the "I-can-dream" category, maybe he can broker a normalization of relations between the United States and Iran. Or finally achieve that all-so-elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians. For sure, these suggestions are little more than wishful thinking, but again, who knows?

I count October's Synod on the Family among Pope Francis' accomplishments. He did not win approval for his reform agenda, but he succeeded in doing something nearly as important. He managed to provoke genuine debate in the Church.

The 25 years from the election of Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI's abdication will be seen by future Church historians as the age of "boundary police" Catholicism. John Paul II and Benedict XVI understood their role to be the guardians and enforcers of orthodoxy. They silenced theologians. They hunted for heretics. They removed bishops. The Church of the 1970's was vibrant, vivid, argumentative, and real. John Paul II and Benedict took that Church and transformed it into "fortress ecclesia," a repository and bastion of Truth standing tall against the rising tides of the secular world, but at the price of draining it of its vitality.

Pope Francis' vision of Church is not defensive. It is clear, furthermore, that he wishes to reignite a culture of debate within a Church where the whole idea of debate had been off-limits for a generation. Seen in these terms, the Synod was a success. Bishops who spent their entire careers reciting from approved scripts were suddenly made to think for themselves.

We will have another Synod on the Family in October, 2015. And I expect that we will see real progress on the question of admitting divorced and remarried Catholics to Communion. Pope Francis has made clear in various ways that that is his preference. He has observed that divorced and remarried Catholics are not excommunicated. They remain part of the body of the Church and obliged by its laws. He views the Eucharist as medicine for the soul. He has expressed high regard for the practice of the Greek Orthodox, and that includes the admission of the divorced and remarried to Communion.

On the other hand, I don't expect similar rapid progress on the acceptances of gays. We will not see the recognition of sacramental same-sex marriage any time soon. On the other hand, there is a growing recognition that such relationships can be a source of spiritual and emotional support and sustenance for those involved. Such a suggestion would have been impossible just two years ago. And as this realization gains ground, I think we can expect to see the Church curtail its legal and political objections to civil same-sex unions.

The nuns never should have been attacked as they were. And now, as we near the end of the year, the Vatican's investigation is reaching a provisional yet largely favorable conclusion. One Vatican Congregation -- the Congregation on Religious -- issued a report that amounted to a qualified exoneration of the nuns. Another investigation -- by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- still lingers. A full and complete exoneration would be a great way to conclude the year.

If Pope Francis has shown a blind spot so far in his pontificate, it has been with respect to women. He is a man of spontaneity, but his spontaneous comments on women have sometimes been cringe-inducing. Still, there is no question that he is a man who listens, who is attentive, and whose mind does not come with a rigid, pre-determined agenda. I think we can expect growth.

Catholics have much to be grateful for as they wish Pope Francis a blessed and merry Christmas. Indeed, he is a joy to the world.

12/17/2014

Pope Francis is clearly making a name for himself as a world-historical figure. He has gained great respect for his efforts to reform the Catholic Church internally -- by cleaning up the Vatican Bank, by restructuring the Curia, by opening up debates over divorced and gay Catholics. These accomplishments alone are significant. He is changing the direction of the Catholic Church from a self-enclosed shell fearful of the world and towards a confident Church not afraid of arguing with itself. But just as profoundly, he is beginning to reshape the world. This is the clear impact of the role Pope Francis has apparently played in the thawing of U.S. -- Cuban relations. The news is still breaking as I write this, but it seems that Pope Francis began efforts last March to draw the United States and Cuba into dialogue. He raised the issue when he met with President Barack Obama that month. He followed up on this conversation over the summer by writing personal letters both to President Obama and to President Raul Castro of Cuba. We do not know the contents of these letters, but we do know that the impact made on both men must have been significant. Pope Francis is not the first modern Pope to play an important role on the world stage. In the early 1960s, John XXIII was instrumental in reconciling Jews and Catholics and was honored by the Israeli Knesset at the time of his canonization for his accomplishments. Pope Paul VI famously addressed the United Nations in 1965 -- the first Pope to have done so. "War never again!" he exclaimed, fearful of the carnage thermonuclear conflict would cause. And John Paul II is, of course, highly regarded for his role in ending the Cold War. What else could Pope Francis and his obviously talented and energetic Scretary of State, Pietro Parolin be contemplating? I suspect we might see, within a few months, a major breakthrough between the Catholic Church and the Chinese government. And, who knows, Pope Francis might even help to thaw the very frosty relations that presently prevail between the United States and Iran! Now, that might be dreaming, but we are allowed to dream.

12/15/2014

There is a growing crisis haunting the Catholic Church. And it is a crisis larger than the events that have so greatly afflicted the American Catholic Church. The pedophilia scandals are a horrifying element of this crisis. So, too, are the bishops who covered up and excused these outrages. And so, also, the more general loss of confidence Catholics have in a hierarchy that seems oddly concerned with rank and privilege and with fighting yesterday's culture wars. Yes, these are all elements of the crisis, but the crisis is larger than this.

And that something larger is both sad and profound: a loss of faith in the institutions of the Church. Pope Francis, in his remarkable interview with La nacion, published the weekend of December 6 and 7, made it clear that he recognized the gravity of the moment. He was asked why so many people were leaving the Church. As posed, the question addressed Latin America. By implication, it looked to the world.

Pope Francis could have directed his answer at factors external to the Church. Indeed, one can imagine his predecessors alternatively blaming culture, or relativism, or the forces of secularism. Pope Francis, however, is different. His was a more introspective answer. We must look within, he advised, to what Catholics are themselves doing wrong.

Well, it seems that in taking this step, Pope Francis was merely warming up. In recent speeches, he began to explore how deep the crisis of clericalism extends. It has poisoned the relationship between priests and lay Catholics. It can serve, for the laity, as heedless abdication of responsibility, and on the part of the clergy a dangerous concentration of power.

So how should lay and clergy interact? The Pope sees a wide latitude here. It is an intersection that must be governed principally by a respect for the power of prophecy. The prophet, Pope Francis has stated, is someone with a sense of the historical moment. The prophet must appreciate the confluence of "past, present, and future." The prophet knows the past promise of God's word, but knows how to interpret this word in her or his life and "to speak a word [to others] that will lift them up."

Again, what is noticeable is what is omitted. The prophet is not someone who listens patiently for instructions from others, or is someone who is fond of restating that perennial objection to growth and development -- "but we've done anything like that before!" No, the prophet is someone who sees things fresh, in context, and knows how to take creative action appropriate to the moment.

The clergy must come to terms with this dimension of the lay vocation and be supportive of it. "The priest's suggestion is immediately to clericalize," the Pope warns. This temptation must be resisted. The priest has a spiritual role, a pastoral role, and a sacramental role, but the priest must not subsume the role of the laity. Harmony between the two orders is what Catholics should strive for. It should never become a situation in which "the big fish swallows the little one."

Pope Francis, in other words, expects an active and engaged laity, a laity that can think for itself, and is not fearful of its own independence. But how shall this Church, of harmonious yet different orders, address the Catholic crisis?

It must not preach. It must not proselytize. It must not condemn, or throw tantrums, or engage in theatrics. Rather, the Church -- the People of God, lay and clergy alike -- must set a good example. They must know that the world is filled with human suffering and that they are called to go about relieving in some small quantum this great misery in ways adapted to need and circumstance.

Only a leader with a great sense of faith could propose such a radical agenda for the Church. And Pope Francis' interview with La nacion makes plain his great faith. Only a confident and faithful leader would have opened the Synod on the Family to the kind of free discussions that occurred last October. Other popes have hosted synods on the family. They were entirely forgettable affairs. The script was written well in advance, everyone recited their assigned lines, and nothing of significance occurred. Pope Francis, on the other hand, opened the Synod up to prophecy, and a consideration of the needs of the moment.

It is fair to describe Pope Francis's summons as a call to Christian adulthood, but not in some superficial or trite sense. Rather he expects all Catholics to show a spirit of leadership, independence, and good judgment. The Church, he has warned, must not be obsessed with the self-referential. It must instead do as Jesus did -- minister to the afflicted and the marginal. It is truly a bold vision of renewal.

12/04/2014

Popes are not merely the head of a Church. Because they are the spiritual leader of a billion people, popes also have a role to play in shaping and forming global order. And historically, there have been popes who have used this position to change the direction of world events. Such a pope was Leo XIII who defined the modern social teaching of the Church. Workers, he insisted, had the right to organize. The world must not be dominated by the primacy of capital. Rather, there must be a balance between the rightful concerns of economic investment and human needs. Another such pope was John Paul II, a native of Poland, who provided an important witness to human freedom in the latter stages of the Cold War.

Pope Francis may prove to be another pope like these two, someone who offers the possibility of redirecting the path of the world at large. He certainly took an important step in that direction with his address to the European Parliament on November 25, 2014.

But let's take a look at the substantive vision he was setting forth. It was a message directed at Europe but it is equally applicable to the entire developed world.

He proposed first that Europe must rededicate itself to the principles of human rights and human dignity. He stressed that rights are intrinsic to the person and that they arise from our very being, our very status as human beings. Persons should never, therefore, be seen as objects, as means to ends. All of this has been said many times before -- by other popes and by secular philosophers going back into the 18th century.

What is fresh about the Pope's teaching is the way in which he used this concept of rights to call upon Europe -- and by extension, the world -- to a renewed respect for each and every person. That respect comes from recognizing that rights do not exist in isolation. Human beings are not "monads," in the Pope's words, isolated, autonomous, purely private economic decision-makers. Rather we act, in all we do, in relationship with others. Rights are, in other words, not strictly speaking individual, but relational.

As a result, human beings have become disposable -- the old, the infirm, the enfeebled, the terminally ill -- they are "abandoned and uncared for." They are "discarded with few qualms." No one has any time or use for them. They do not produce, they do not have bargaining power, they are not economic players, and so they are shunned and mistreated. Pope Francis has often used the expression "throwaway" society to describe the modern western condition, and in these passages he spelled out the roots of this malady.

Even more ominously, Pope Francis warned that Europe must reduce growing human alienation within its borders. Its institutions have lost the capacity to sympathize with individuals. And as populations lose confidence in their fundamental institutions -- of governance, of education, of commerce -- there is the risk that they may turn "to the many forms of extremism spreading in the world today."

Democracy must be revitalized, he urged, through an appreciation that unity is not uniformity. The great risk to democracy, he explained, is that economics will telescope different and diverse human societies into an oppressive and homogeneous whole:

The true strength of our democracies -- understood as expressions of the political will of the people -- must not be allowed to collapse under the pressure of multinational interests which are not universal, which weaken them and turn them into uniform systems of economic power at the service of unseen empires.

Politics, in other words, must take priority over economic efficiency. It is the role of citizens to tame economic forces and subject them to human values. A more profound criticism of contemporary American politics has yet to be uttered.

Humanity itself must be renewed, the Pope declared, and that is done through a renewal of education. "Education cannot be limited to providing technical expertise alone." The Pope thus confronted the pervasive but wrong-headed mantra of career counselors everywhere to pursue only those degrees that lead directly and tangibly to economic pay-offs. But the Pope is no enemy of scientific or technical training. In practically the next breath he encouraged European governments to provide further support for education in fields such as "alternative sources of energy." But, he stressed, only through knowledge of the humanities can "young people today... look to the future with hope instead of disenchantment."

Yes, this was said to the European Parliament. But it deserves repeating in the halls of the incoming Congress. Economic recovery does not come through increased shareholder value, or the financialization of the marketplace, or give-backs to the one percent, but through worker confidence. Restore prosperity and stability to the working class, the Pope as much as pronounced, and you restore a healthy economy.

Sometimes there are religious leaders who can step beyond confessional boundaries and become a voice for the improvement of the world. And in this speech, Pope Francis took an important step in that direction. (But, your Holiness,a word of advice, don't pick on grandmothers the next time out).

11/14/2014

The Catholic Church at this moment in history is faced with a rising chorus of right-wing dissent. This movement poses a threat to Pope Francis's reforms, but the threat should not be overblown. The self-proclaimed leader of the resistance movement has become Cardinal Raymond Burke. To understand both the nature of the threat, and its limits, a closer look at Cardinal Burke is warranted.

Born in 1948 in small-town Wisconsin, Burke is a man of obvious intelligence. Up to now, he has enjoyed a meteoric rise through the Church's hierarchy. He was made bishop of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1994, at the youthful age of forty-six and eight years later was promoted to Archbishop of St. Louis. And in 2008, he was named Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Chief Justice of the most important of the Vatican courts.

Burke built his career on highly public confrontations. In 2004, he declared that he would not give Holy Communion to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Four years later, he called on St. Louis University, a Jesuit college, to dismiss its basketball coach, Rick Majerus, for endorsing Hillary Clinton and announcing that he was "personally pro-choice." (The college refused to follow Burke's advice). And in 2009, he attacked Catholics who voted for Barack Obama. No Catholic, he said, who knew of the President's positions on the family or on same-sex marriage "could have voted for him with a clear conscience."

And if in public Burke climbed the ladder of ecclesial success through increasingly hysterical attacks not just on politicians but on ordinary Catholics who did not share his political priorities, away from the limelight he was busy helping to construct a dense network of "traditionalists."

The traditionalist movement is not widely known. It is centered around devotion to the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass and a restoration of the elaborate liturgical rituals of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. During his time in La Crosse, Burke's most direct contribution to this movement was to found a traditionalist men's religious order, the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem.

The Order is entirely pre-Vatican II. Now headquartered in West Virginia, the Canons celebrate the old pre-Vatican II Latin Mass and follow the pre-Vatican liturgical calendar. To take one small example: Even though the rest of the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of Christ the King in mid-November, Cardinal Burke's Order prefers to do it in late October, the way it was done before 1965.

The circle gathered around Burke is a fringe movement. They are dissidents in the truest sense of that word. Cardinal Burke blames the modern liturgy for "moral corruption?" Really. Such allegations are best treated as a kind of bad joke. He has waged an eighteenth-month long campaign of vilification directed at the sitting Pope. It is unthinkable that a Cardinal should attempt to sow such discord in the Church.

In a misguided column in late October, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat warned Pope Francis against "reassign[ing] potential critics in the hierarchy." This was clearly a veiled reference to Burke's impending dismissal from the Signatura. Douthat's concern was that the Pope might thereby prompt a schism.

A schism is not going to happen. Raymond Burke and his tiny band of followers are not about to march into that wilderness. What is happening, however, is that Pope Francis is not indulging the traditionalists in the way Pope Benedict once did. The Pope knows well how few the traditionalists are in numbers and how self-referential is their focus. There are not many Catholics who are moved to tears at the sight of Renaissance vestments; or who long for a return to liturgies in a foreign tongue; or who wish to repudiate fifty years of development since Vatican II. Not many Catholic women want to return to the days of wearing scarves or head coverings at Mass. I can appreciate nostalgia within limits, but the Burkean project is nostalgia for a golden age, a romanticized past that never was and that cannot be recreated now.

Pope Francis, in contrast, wishes to have a Catholic Church that looks more like Jesus's earthly ministry. He wants the Church to reach out to the poor and the marginalized, a Church that shows love and solidarity with those whom society despises or discards. Pope Francis knows that Jesus did not retreat from the world behind a cloud of incense and lace, but engaged with it, in all its messiness.

This is the trumpet sound that Catholics should follow. For in the end, Burke's way is a dead end, a retreat into a clericalized grandeur, Catholicism transformed into grand opera, perhaps, or a museum exhibit. It is, in the end, spectacle, not a living faith.

10/16/2014

The Vatican report issued Monday, October 13, is a preliminary document, intended to mark the halfway point of a synod convened to discuss the family. Documents like that aren't supposed to excite passions. They're supposed to be sleepy, soporific, committee-crafted documents meant to reveal little. They are not usually earthquakes that rattle the foundations of the Church.

This document, however, is different. It is, as John Thavis wrote, an earthquake. It is worth extended study, and since it is meant to be a template for further discussions, it will undoubtedly be carefully scrutinized in the months ahead. I shall certainly return to it in my future writing. For I truly believe that nothing since the close of the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago has the potential of this document to change "business as usual" in the Catholic Church.

I'd like to indicate four areas where I think this document breaks new ground:

(1) The report opens by powerfully asserting a dynamic understanding of the human person and the human condition. That is the meaning of the declaration in paragraph five that "anthropological and cultural change today influences all aspects of life." The word "anthropological" is particularly important. That is a term of art reserved in Catholic moral writing for what is understood about human nature. By speaking of "anthropological change," the report suggests that our awareness of the human person is capable of growth and change as history and the sciences reveal new vistas for discovery.

This may seem self-evident but in fact it marks a crucial shift in Catholic thought about the human person. Pope John Paul II"s concept of the person, as articulated especially in his writings on the theology of the body, was remarkably static. It assumed the existence of a single, biologically-determined human nature, good for all times and places and proposed a one-size-fits-all set of moral laws to be applied across time in every case.

The synod report moves away from this fixed and unalterable concept of the person. And this will change how we reason about human sexuality. If we adopt the static view of John Paul II it becomes impossible to incorporate into moral analysis the latest scientific insights on, say, the nature of same-sex attraction. A dynamic understanding of the person, on the other hand, which keeps the door open to future learning, may be open to revisiting and revising teaching that has become outdated -- not because the underlying values have changed but because our awareness of what it means to be human has shifted.

The report demands that the Church meet people in the same way Jesus encountered them: in all the messiness of their scattered lives. Jesus, after all, promised the gift of living water to a Samaritan woman who had been married five times and was even then cohabiting with a man outside of marriage (John 4: 4-26).

This insight is then brought to bear on the question of reconciling the divorced and remarried with the Church. To appreciate the new path this document has embarked upon, John Paul II's pontificate again serves as a point of comparison. Take, for instance, his speech to the Roman Rota in the year 1994. These annual speeches are deliberately intended as instructions issued by the Pope to the Vatican Supreme Court charged with hearing petitions for marriage annulments. Judges, John Paul II gravely warned, must avoid "the temptation to lighten the heavy demands of observing the law in the name of a mistaken idea of compassion and mercy." What mattered to John Paul II, above all, was the defense of the abstract principle of the marital bond.

The synod report, in other words, shifts the premise of the debate on the subject of the divorced and remarried. Where John Paul II and Benedict XVI were concerned above all else with abstractions -- rules, principles, policies -- Pope Francis is concerned with the concrete reality of individual human beings trying to do their best in their faith journeys. People who have been divorced, who have remarried, who are now living in successful second marriages, should be "listened to with respect and love." Many of them may even have been divorced "unjustly."

(4) The synod report breaks fresh ground again in the way it discusses frankly the "reality... of cohabitation." To be sure, the report stresses the singular importance of what it calls an "institutionally-recognized relationship." Marriage should be the culmination that couples should strive to attain.

But the document also acknowledges, in a way never done before, that cohabitation might be a fruitful step in the direction of spiritual growth. It might, the document states, be "seen as a germ," a seed that might grow in the direction of a permanent, life-long marital union. How would Jesus respond to people living together outside of marriage? He would, the document insists, act like "the light of a beacon in a port." He would not condemn or drive such people away, he would attract them with the example of his life. We should imitate Jesus when we consider those who are in cohabitation relationships.

What is most surprising about the document's discussion of gays is found in paragraph 52, where it states, regarding same-sex unions: "It has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners."

"Mutual aid" and "sacrifice" -- these are words that Catholic moral teaching reserves to marriage. Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Casti Connubii (1930), described marriage as promoting the "mutual aid" of the spouses. Marriage, John Paul II was fond of repeating, must imitate the "sacrificial love" of Jesus, who died for the sins of humanity.

The synod's report, in other words, is an invitation to reform the likes of which we have not seen for half a century. I hope to be a full participant in this debate, and certainly I encourage others to join the discussion.

09/09/2014

It is September. The days grow a little shorter. There is that hint of fall crispness in the air. And, of course, it is back-to-school season.

And if it is back-to-school time, then it must also be time for that very sad, very sorry, and utterly needless ritual that we all wish would stop happening. I am talking about the Catholic schools that continue to fire gay teachers. These annual firings are tragic, pointless, and inflict great harm. The discharged teachers, of course, are the most seriously injured, but so are all the people associated with the schools -- students, graduates, parents, and staff. The Catholic school system is diminished in the eyes of the public. And the church as a whole is made to suffer.

Motherhood and mortgages -- these are the classic symbols of quiet suburban domesticity. Yet they were also the triggering events that led to the firing of lesbian teachers in Detroit and St. Louis, respectively. Barbara Webb is 33 years old and a trained chemist. She could have pursued "lucrative private-sector opportunities" but felt the calling to teach and to awaken young minds to the joys of science. In a world that is shaped increasingly by science and technology, she seems like the sort of teacher every school district would want.

Students and graduates have expressed support. As one student put it, "I think the bigger thing everyone is feeling is that we have been taught this whole time to live a Christian life and be accepting of other people and yet we go and fire one of our favorite teachers?"

News accounts suggest that support for Barbara Webb is growing. A change.org petition has been launched in support of her cause. I've signed it. I hope others do too.

Some 500 miles to the southwest, in St. Louis, a similar set of tragic events are playing themselves out. Over the summer, it seems, a young married couple did what newlyweds routinely do all over the nation: They applied for a home mortgage. Olivia Reichert and Christina Gambaro, however, are in a same-sex union, and they are employed by Cor Jesu High School.

When the school learned of the mortgage application, the two teachers were terminated. Anger at Cor Jesu's decision has been steadily growing since. Students and alumnae have organized Facebook pages and engaged in other acts of protest. Graduates from as long ago as the 1970s have spoken out against the administration's decision. And alumnae have threatened what is always the most effective form of protest: They have promised to withhold contributions.

That these events are occurring in Detroit and St. Louis should perhaps not be surprising. Both archdioceses are led by veteran culture warriors who have long expressed hostility to same-sex marriage. In April 2013 Archbishop Allen Vigneron advised Detroit Catholics who supported same-sex marriage that they should not receive Holy Communion -- a position effectively answered by Francis de Bernardo of New Ways Ministry.

Archbishop Robert Carlson, who now heads the St. Louis archdiocese, has a culture-war pedigree that stretches back many years. While serving as Bishop of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in the early 2000s, he reportedly told Sen. Tom Daschle to stop identifying himself as Catholic -- something Daschle refused to do. As the archbishop of St. Louis, Carlson has spoken out against same-sex marriage as recently as this summer. Infamously, Carlson also testified under oath this past June that as the chancellor of the Twin Cities archdiocese in the early 1980s, he failed to report allegations of sex abuse to the police and wasn't even sure the acts were criminal.

Both archdioceses are experiencing demographic crises. Vigneron and Carlson both assumed their present offices in 2009. Vigneron has seen infant baptisms plunge by around 30 percent during his tenure as archbishop. The numbers under Carlson are not as catastrophic, but they are bad enough: Infant baptisms are down a little more than 12 percent in a territory that is growing in population. Do you think that these two men might come to realize that a faith of inclusion, not exclusion, might help reverse these trends? I hope so.

What I wish both Marian High School and Cor Jesu might also recognize is that our knowledge of same-sex attraction has shifted dramatically over the last couple of decades. Indeed, it is now fair to say that a scientific consensus has emerged that holds that same-sex attraction is a naturally occurring and totally benign variation in human sexuality. In light of this new consensus, the prudent course for school administrators is to withhold harsh judgment of these teachers' obviously rich and fruitful relationships. Certainly, they should not have been terminated from their positions.

Significantly, Catholic leaders in other nations are now adopting this cautious, do-no-harm approach. I have in mind particularly Bishop Nunzio Galantino, the newly appointed secretary-general of the Italian Bishops' Conference, who has called for the acceptance of gays "without taboo." The American Catholic laity seem to agree with Galantino: Over half of American Catholics now support same-sex marriage. Modesty, prudence, the realization that science now counsels acceptance and support of gay relationships, not their suppression, should suggest that these firings must stop. Now. At once.

08/20/2014

Quite properly, journalistic reaction to events in Ferguson, Missouri, has focused on the militarization of the police, on the role of racism in the killing of unarmed African-American men, and on the political disenfranchisement that allows communities like Ferguson to operate in obvious defiance of public sentiment.

But there is another element peculiar to Missouri politics that must have light shed upon it. That is the sharp right-ward turn conservative politics in that State has taken. In its best moments, conservatism stands for caution, for prudence, for a government that is efficient yet serves the needs of all.

There was a time when conservatives in Missouri stood for these things, but that is no longer the case. Rather, what is visible to the outside observer is a dangerous movement towards the outermost fringes. For it is fair to say that a toxic neo-confederatism has emerged as a force to be reckoned with at the very heart of Missouri's government -- its state legislature.

Let's consider Brian Nieves, a State Senator from West St. Louis. Nieves is not some obscure back-bencher. He's been a member of the State Legislature since 2002, rising to the position of House Majority Whip before moving on to the Senate, where he now chairs the Committee on General Laws.

And what has Senator Nieves been doing in this position of trust? He has injected neo-confederatism into the law-making function. Consider Senate Joint Resolution 45, a state constitutional amendment Nieves proposed in January, 2012, which sought to revive the discredited Confederate principle of state nullification. The amendment would have declared that Missouri enjoyed the "sovereign" right to treat as null and void all federal law on gun control; abortion; climate change; federally-subsidized health care; same-sex marriage; hate crimes; and a range of other topics. In other words, had this amendment been adopted, Missouri would have been free to reject as non-binding a large body of federal statutes and judicial decisions.

Nullification, of which this is a modern manifestation, is an idea that has its origins in the efforts of the Southern planter class of the 1820's and 1830's to defend slavery against an encroaching federal government. In 1832, the federal government tried to enforce a tariff in South Carolina that posed a threat to the profitability of the slave-based cotton trade that formed the cornerstone of that State's economy.

Purporting to defend the Constitution from an allegedly unconstitutional tariff, the South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification declared that laws which "violated the true meaning and intent [of the Constitution] are null, void, and no law." When President Andrew Jackson threatened a military response, South Carolina backed down, although three decades later it chose secession rather than recognize Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States.

Nieves' joint resolution did not carry the day. But that did not deter the nullificationists in the State Legislature from a second, more successful attempt to assert Missouri's self-proclaimed right to nullify federal law.

It is past time, way past time, 150 years past time, to be playing around with Confederate ideology. That Republicans in the Missouri legislature gave overwhelming support to a piece of legislation whose origins can be traced to the ugliest moments in America's slave-owning past stands as a badge of infamy. The Missouri Republican Party would do well to repudiate this legislation and promise to stop playing with the dynamite of nullification.

It's time for Missouri's right-wingers to leave the nineteenth century behind. It is time for all Missourians -- indeed, time for all Americans -- to start building a more just and equitable world, one free of institutional racism and yawning racial disparities. Missouri was once the home of far-sighted progressives. Harry Truman desegregated the Armed Forces in 1948. Democratic Senator Stuart Symington voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act at great political risk. Missouri, it is time to get serious. The world is watching.

08/06/2014

In a broad sense of that term, reading Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe is akin to a religious experience. I would not be at all surprised if Tegmark felt a similar sense of excitement in writing this massively learned yet wonderfully accessible book. For by the book's close, he found himself talking about the universe as a form of transcendence and advocating for the solemn ethical responsibilities humanity must undertake as likely one of the very few self-aware species in the galaxy.

On the level of my own religious perspective, I was deeply moved by Tegmark's work. But it is probably best first to recapitulate the main points of his argument. His claims go beyond ambitious -- they are truly audacious. Everything, he says -- our universe, and the many other universes with which it coexists -- are not only explainable mathematically but are in fact mathematical structures.

This sounds like a book that only a nerd would love. But that is not true. As Tegmark builds his narrative he makes his case in lucid prose, remarkably free of the equations and calculations that only a select few will ever comprehend. He nevertheless succeeds in building a compelling case that moves gradually from what we all know to be true about the universe until it finally pushes hard against the outer boundaries of human knowledge.

He begins with a couple of important premises. First, where cosmology is concerned, we must always be prepared to be counter-intuitive. It is not obvious to the casual observer that the earth should be round, or that it is in constant motion around the sun, or that all matter is composed of minutely-small subatomic particles. Careful observation, however, coupled with the willingness to break free of the conventional and obvious ways of thought, made these insights possible. Second, Tegmark insists that we should realize that the limits of what we know are constantly expanding -- the solar system was once the limit of our understanding, then the galaxy, and now the universe as demarcated by the cosmic background radiation left over from the Big Bang.

But, Tegmark continues, there is a reality lying beyond these observable limits. Theoretical physics points to the existence of a vast number of other universes that may never come into contact with ours but whose existence we may nevertheless infer.

Tegmark commences his explanation for how these other universes came to be with a discussion of "cosmic inflation." Inflation began as a hypothesis that sought to explain certain irregularities in the standard account of the Big Bang. It still rests upon a well-grounded assumption: "that once upon a time, there was a tiny uniform blob of a substance whose density was very hard to dilute" (p. 100). Because this primordial matter could not dilute, because its density remained nearly the same as it grew larger, it was capable of explosive, exponential growth. And while inflation remains a hypothesis today, empirical verification of its role in the formation of our universe is inching closer.

Our observable universe, Tegmark indicates, took its shape as inflation began to slow at least in our small corner of existence. But inflation, which is incessant, could reasonably be assumed to continue elsewhere and is still bringing into being countless other universes. And since its growth is exponential, the number of these other universes continues to double and to double again at an ever-increasing pace. Not all, or even most of these universes, likely obey the same physical laws as ours, and most are probably hostile and forbidding places. Still, their existence can be inferred from what we know about our own.

It is through inflation that we gain an awareness of the vastness of the cosmos and what Tegmark calls "Level One" and "Level Two" universes. Level One universes are those universes, scattered throughout the cosmos, whose physical laws resemble our own. We may never encounter them directly since inflation continually expands the distances between us and them, but it is likely that a process which continues to spawn universes at an exponential rate will bring into being other universes similar to our own. Level Two universes, like the first type, are also created by inflation, but are governed by different effective rules of physics than our own.

After probing the depths of space, Tegmark directs the reader's attention to the smallest bits of matter -- subatomic particles. It had been known for nearly a century that the smallest particles -- electrons and the like -- did not obey classical rules of physics. Had they, all atomic structure would have collapsed soon after the Big Bang. Something was responsible for preserving atomic structure, but what, exactly?

Tegmark draws on theories of quantum mechanics to assert that subatomic particles possess the capacity of being in more than one place at the same time, a phenomenon called "superposition." The movement of such particles, furthermore, is governed by the "wavefunction," which "describes the extent to which [they're] in two different places" (p. 179).

Why, then, do we not observe such behavior in our daily lives? The traditional answer, proposed by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, is that the act of observation collapsed the wavefunction "so that you find the object only in one place" (p. 178).

Tegmark, however, rejects the traditional account in favor of a more radical version of quantum mechanics. Why can't we more directly observe this sort of subatomic behavior? It has nothing to do with what we as observers bring to the process. Rather, it is the interaction of particles with one another that causes them to appear fixed in a process known as "decoherence." But, in optimal circumstances, it has become possible to detect electrons being in two places at one time: "if you pump out as many air molecules as possible with a good vacuum pump, an electron can typically survive for about a second without colliding with anything, which is plenty enough time for it to demonstrate funky quantum-superposition behavior" (p. 199).

These conclusions lead Tegmark to endorse Hugh Everett's controversial "many worlds" theory -- that in a process that remains undetectable subatomic particles "hive off" and bring into being new worlds that are almost exact copies as our own but that might differ in some crucial respect. Thus in some worlds we might be dead while in others we are the kings and queens of some exotic land. These many worlds Tegmark labels "Level Three" universes.

Tegmark has now prepared his readers for the final step in his reasoning. Subatomic particles, he asserts, are mathematical structures. And if they are mathematical structures, then everything which they support and form and order must also be a mathematical structure. Thus Tegmark is led to his "mathematical universe hypothesis."

Having now reviewed Tegmark's claims, I'd like to return to the dimension of religion. I am a Christian with some specialized training in ancient and medieval philosophy. And I find in Tegmark's arguments echoes of some very old ways of explaining existence.

The Greek philosopher Democritus (c. 460-370 BCE) proposed that all of existence was formed of invisible atoms. He even suggested the possibility of a multiplicity of worlds and universes that might be found on the far side of the firmament of stars we see in the night sky. By the second and third centuries BCE, we find the Stoics suggesting that this body of scientific knowledge reflected the existence of a God who was reason.

Early Christian writers borrowed this idea and made it a backbone of their own understanding of the universe. God is reason. Hence no science is alien to God. Many great medieval minds would have concurred -- thinkers like Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280) and Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175-1253) among many others. (None of this is to diminish the Church's role in sometimes violently stifling scientific inquiry as when Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake.)

When I read Tegmark, I see traces of this very old way of understanding the divine. What else is mathematics but reason in its pure form? This is a commitment I share. God is reason. And since God is reason, there is no branch of inquiry where a believer should fear to tread.

This traditional account of God as reason has been obscured in a contemporary American context that is convulsed between dueling schools of fundamentalism -- simplistic, literal-minded religious zealotry on the one hand, and cool dogmatic atheism on the other. We must revive our commitment to a God that is reason if there is to be any hope of reconciling religion and science.

But if God is reason, there is yet one more thing that the Scriptures add. For revelation tells us that God is also love. While mathematics may tell us the form and shape and logic of all existence, it is as yet incomplete without love. For it is love that makes humanity a community, that calls for self-sacrifice and the sublimation of the personal for the good of something larger. If, as Tegmark argues, human life has meaning and significance even in the face of cosmic vastness, it is because we are, at least in our better moments, cooperative creatures capable of loving our neighbors as we do ourselves.

07/24/2014

Eugenio Scalfari, aged 90, is truly one of the grand old men of Italian politics and journalism. Trained as a lawyer, he has been active in Italian Socialist causes since World War II and edited and/or founded two of Italy's most influential newspapers --L'Espresso and La Repubblica.

He has also clearly become one of Pope Francis' good friends. In late September 2013, the two men sat down for a conversation. Scalfari later published a summary of their exchange. Working from memory, trying to capture the "essence" of what the Pope had said, Scalfari published a summary that rocked the closed and cloistered world of inside-the-Vatican politics. The two men spoke about the need for social justice. The mass unemployment of the young was a tragedy and a consummate waste of human talent and promise. The Pope looked to Scalfari to make common cause on this issue.

Scalfari and the Pope reflected together on the nature of the divine -- "God is Love," the two men agreed, with the Pope connecting that point to the Incarnation. The two men went on. Believers and non-believers are alike called to work for the common good. Pope Francis assured Scalfari that it was not his intention to proselytize -- "proselytism is solemn nonsense," the pontiff announced. Instead he hoped in some small modest way to love others as Jesus had loved.

They even talked about the Vatican court, the infamous "curia." It was a place full of intrigue. The curia, Pope Francis told his friend, is "the leprosy of the papacy."

Published in La Repubblica, for almost two months the interview also stood on the Vatican website where it attracted many complaints, especially by conservative Catholics. The Vatican itself finally removed the article from the website in November, 2013. The Pope, a Vatican spokesman said, did not really mean to compare his own curia to leprosy.

The Catholic right-wing, which had clucked in disapproval now made their discontent even clearer. This was no way for a Pope to comport himself. He might sow confusion. He should speak carefully, in the old and approved forms. When the interview came down from the Vatican website, they thought they had scored an impressive triumph.

A lesser pope might have been chastened by the experience. He might have bowed to critics and thereafter steered far away from someone like Scalfari. But this is not Pope Francis' style. And so, once again, in mid-July, 2014, Francis sat down with his friend Scalfari for another talk.

Unsurprisingly, once again Francis made news. He was said to have hinted broadly that the practice of priestly celibacy -- mandatory in the Western Church -- might be reconsidered. He told his old friend that two percent of the Catholic clergy are pedophiles. He let it be known that even some members of the hierarchy were guilty of this heinous crime -- bishops, cardinals.

Predictably, the Vatican rushed out a correction. No, the Pope did not really say that there were pedophiles among the cardinals. The remainder of the interview was allowed to occupy a kind of gray area -- neither officially confirmed as accurate nor officially denied as false. Scalfari freely admitted that he took no notes and reconstructed the conversation afterwards, trying to capture its essence if not the precise words that were used.

To dwell overly much on the content of the two conversations, to ask whether this or that phrase is transcribed exactly as it was pronounced is to miss I think what is truly most important about these interviews. For it is not so much the words and the content of the interviews, but the fact that they are happening at all that is meaningful.

If we consider that there were two interviews, that the second one occurred even against the backdrop of a great deal of criticism directed at the first interview, then several features are worth noting:

First, Pope Francis and Eugenio Scalfari are plainly friends. They like each other. And in their friendship they might be said to reflect the way in which the secular and the religious spheres might find common ground. The secular world and the realm of faith are not irreconcilable. So, how might these two worlds come to know each other better?

Again, I think a focus on the fact that these conversations occurred suggests ways in which the spiritual and the secular might cooperate, and that is through sincere and respectful dialogue. Women and men of faith must not take as their default position hostility towards all things secular. They must instead recognize the humanity of their conversation partners. They must show their emotions and share their vulnerabilities. They must in other words bare their souls. Such earnestness, Scalfari's response illustrates, will be met more than halfway. Both sides in this conversation must appreciate their shared priorities -- they must work for a world of justice and mercy, a world of love that crosses boundaries and worldviews. They must, in other words, show respect. They have more in common than they realize.

If friendship, dialogue, and respect are among the lessons to be drawn from these conversations, a final feature is also worth noting. Here, as in so much else he has undertaken, Pope Francis is rewriting the rules on how to be a pope for the modern world. Popes of the last two centuries have watched their words carefully. Their speech follows certain prescribed rules -- encyclicals are solemn, apostolic exhortations a little less so, allocutions and sermons just slightly more relaxed. What Pope Francis is doing fits none of these rules. What he is doing, rather, is what his namesake, St. Francis instructed his followers to do: teach first by example and use words only when necessary. He is doing nothing less than modeling the relationship of Church and the world.

06/13/2014

The reconciliation of science and religion is one of the most compelling tasks confronting religious believers today. For we are truly faced with a pair of hostile, warring camps. Many religious believers have drifted into a kind of pietistic mistrust of science that seeks comfort in demonstrably false propositions like young earth creationism. On the other hand, we find a number of scientist who dismiss the possibility of a spiritual dimension to human existence. Some dismiss faith altogether as an outdated mode of explaining the inexplicable. Religion is superstition, they contend, and empiricism must finally triumph over the irrational.

Thus I picked up Amir Aczel's book, "Why Science Does Not Disprove God," with eager anticipation, hoping that he might make peace between these contending factions. Alas, I sighed, upon finishing the book, the chasm remains unbridged. Rather than grappling with the truly challenging, foundational questions, Aczel, I discovered, preferred to recite middle-brow explanations that might give consolation to people of faith but that never really come close to achieving a reconciliation of science and faith. Certainly, no one who is not already a believer will find much that is persuasive in these pages.

Let's just consider a couple of Aczel's arguments to see his method at work. Take evolution. Aczel's chapter on evolution opens with a nod to Charles Darwin's early training in theology. It notes that in the second edition of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" someone -- Darwin himself, perhaps, or an anonymous editor -- inserted acknowledgement of a "Creator." So, the argument goes, Darwin maybe did not see an essential incompatibility between his findings and conventional Christian faith.

Aczel might have used these interesting historical nuggets as a way of opening a broader conversation about faith and evolution. Instead, however, he becomes distracted, devoting precious pages to expressing his own misgivings about evolutionary theory. Thus he goes on at great length about how he thinks evolutionary biology has failed to give an adequate account of the origins of human altruism, which we display not only towards beloved family members, but to animals: "How often do we hear about a person who jumped into the icy water of a lake to save the life of a dog, or a fireman who returned to a burning house to rescue a cat?" (pp. 203-204). The idea seems to be that since no genetic benefit is conferred by such acts, this impulse does not fit the evolutionary model and evolutionary theory is thereby weakened.

There are other thinkers, of course, who have attempted a sophisticated reconciliation of evolution and religion. Classically, there was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). A world-class paleontologist as well as a Jesuit priest, Teilhard de Chardin relied on evolutionary theory and extended it to propose an ever-expanding "noosphere" -- an inter-connected realm of cognition and consciouness that aims finally at the Omega Point, which constitutes ultimate knowledge of the universe, and of God.

Aczel mentions Teilhard de Chardin, but refuses to engage the complexity of his thought. He merely quotes Teilhard on the compatibility of religion and evolution and leaves it at that. Why? Why are evolution and religion compatible? One longs to have the "why" question answered. But Aczel does not venture a reply.

This is small potatoes, however, compared to Aczel's condemnation of the concept of the multiverse. The multiverse is a trending subject of investigation among cosmologists and theoretical physicists. Relying variously on notions of cosmic inflation and quantum mechanics, exponents of the multiverse posit the existence of many universes -- perhaps even an infinite number of them. We happen to inhabit a universe that is not inherently hostile to sentient life, but a strong mathematical case can be made for the simultaneous existence of other universes where the parameters for life are simply absent. And while we may never come into contact with these universes, what we know of the physical laws governing our own point to their existence.

Aczel notes that some of the so-called "New Atheists" find intellectual refuge in the theory of the multiverse. And for that reason, it seems, he attacks the very proposition that such infinite complexity is possible. Aczel writes: "Just because we don't know how to 'stop' inflation doesn't mean that it creates other universes. And just because we understand so little about the wave function of quantum mechanics doesn't mean that a wave can live on in other worlds." (p. 145).

Aczel disputes the existence of the multiverse, finally, because it is not subject to strict experimental verification. We will never be able to observe its attributes, and so we should conclude that there is no such thing. There is an obvious fallacy lurking in this denialism. God, also, is not subject to strict verifiable proof. God's existence cannot be discerned by experiment. God and the multiverse alike are matters of inference, intuition, perceiving insight.

Aczel can be an informative and entertaining writer. I have particularly benefited from some of the articles he has written for Huffington Post. Thus I learned a good deal from his essay on Albert Einstein's concept of God and what has become of it. And even if I remain unconvinced, I think his essay on some of the more speculative elements of theoretical physics offers some cogent criticisms.

In the end, I wonder if Aczel was motivated to reject certain contentions, such as the multiverse, chiefly because some New Atheists have found such claims congenial to their cause. Honestly, whether we live in a singular, one-and-only universe uniquely and finely tuned for life, or in a microscopically small, habitable corner of an infinitely expanding multiverse, I do not believe that science has disproved God. To make that case, however, would require another book.

06/09/2014

How do we describe a sociopath? It is someone who has no regard for the well-being of others. Someone who looks only to his own needs and treats other people as mere instrumentalities, as means to achieving personal gratification. It is someone who acts with cold calculation. Someone who is entirely lacking in remorse. Someone who can kill and think nothing more of it than the best means of disposing of the evidence.

As I indicated, this is a paraphrase, but I think a fairly close one. The Cardinal posed a challenge: How do we make a more humane market? There are many things we might do to begin to reintroduce Christian principles to the marketplace. I might suggest three ideas to start the conversation.

First: Catholics -- and all Christians and persons of good will -- must take the principle of the living wage to be a non-negotiable right. Pope Leo XIII said as much in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, where he taught that all workers were entitled to wages sufficient to support a family.

The great Catholic economist Msgr. John A. Ryan developed this point in his book, "A Living Wage: Its Ethical and Economic Aspects" (1912). A living wage, he persuasively argued, is a natural right. It is absolute. It is a right that arises from the sacredness of the person. Every human being is entitled to be a fully integrated member of society. And this is only possible where people can support themselves, as well as dependents such as children or elderly relatives.

Ryan does not advocate a general leveling of wages. He understood that there will always be wage differentials and that such differences are not in themselves wicked. But where a plutocracy aggregates to itself an ever-increasing share of wealth at the expense of the vast mass of the working poor, then that system is unjust.

Second: We must re-legitimize trade unions. Catholics especially have a long and honorable history of supporting unions. John McGreevy, the Catholic historian, has documented the depth of this involvement. (See "Catholicism and American Freedom: A History," 2012). According to McGreevy, "priests across the country spent the 1930's encouraging their parishioners to join unions." (p. 163). Archbishop Edward Mooney of Detroit even argued that Catholic laborers had an affirmative duty to organize.

In today's economic environment, we need a revival of trade unionism. A robust trade-union movement must be premised on recognition of the right that all persons have to come together for economic purposes. If the interests of capital have the right and privilege of organizing and pooling resources, then so too do workers.

In truth, unions and corporations ought to share the same set of rights and privileges under the law. Today, all power flows to capital. In the nineteenth century, corporations were strictly limited entities. They were bound by their charters to fulfill certain public purposes and would be punished for failure. Today such language is considered antiquated.

Corporations today exist for the purpose of making money for their shareholders. At the same time, they enjoy limited liability. Shareholders are immunized from virtually all risk of loss. Thanks to a category error committed by the John Roberts Supreme Court (in which the Court mistook the fictitious, limited legal personality of a corporation for a real human being) corporations enjoy political rights that would have been unthinkable a century ago. We may soon learn whether for-profit business corporations even have a right to their own religion.

We need an equal playing field, and unions have proven historically to have been an effective means of achieving this end. Today, there is a nascent trade union movement organizing especially in immigrant communities. Led by forceful personalities like the Catholic protege of Cesar Chavez, Maria Elena Durazo, this movement deserves the support of all Christians and persons of good will.

This insight returns us to the sociopathic economy. The forces of money and capital are not natural phenomena. They are not the winds and the tides. The sociopathic market has assumed the shape it has because we have allowed the legal system to become skewed in its favor. A reinvigorated state would bring to bear in the regulation of the marketplace a set of humane values. It would rebalance the marketplace so as to fairly serve the interests not of capital alone, but of all employees and all interested human beings.

When I read Timothy Cardinal Dolan's essay in the Wall Street Journal, in which he asserted that "the answer to problems with the free market is not to reject economic liberty in favor of government control" I can only say, with all due respect, that he misunderstands Church teaching on both economics and the role of the state. For millions of American workers, trapped in a world of wage theft and poverty conditions, the economy is not free. And the government is not the problem, as the libertarian right wing would have it, but the instrument Catholics have traditionally relied on to remedy such afflictions.

Paul Raushenbush is right. Religious progressivism is probably the most exciting and most significant religious movement in much of today's world. Certainly, the religious right is a discredited shell of its former self. And the most important task confronting religious progressives is to subdue "the economy that kills."

06/02/2014

The Isla Vista mass murder was a preventable tragedy. It was the destruction of innocent life without need or reason. It is proof, as if more proof were needed, that we are past the time to break the nexus between guns, murder, and mental illness. And we should do that by enacting rigorous new gun-control legislation that takes account of an individual's fitness to own lethal weapons in light of what we are learning about the human brain.

Brain science, in other words, has advanced to the point where we can see into the brain, alleviate the symptoms of mental illness, and even make credible predictions about future misconduct.

Now, what do we know about Elliot Rodger? We know that he displayed psychological difficulties from an early time in his life. He was in therapy, it seems from the age of 8 or 9. He found it difficult to interact with other people and displayed aloofness.

These difficulties only intensified as Elliot entered adolescence. He informed all who would listen to him of his perceived problems in attracting women. Elliot, however, was not experiencing normal teenaged social anxiety but was instead slipping free of the bonds of reality. His problem was not awkwardness or clumsy interpersonal skills. It was a thought disorder that led to grandiose views of what he was entitled to and a deep sense of grievance that he was somehow being deprived of his birthright.

Much has been said about the Isla Vista massacre as a crime of privilege. And I think that there is much truth in these observations. Elliot Rodger absorbed misogynistic and racist attitudes from the ambient culture, and he expressed these repugnant thoughts in Web postings and videos. He enjoyed all the privileges of wealth. On the night of the murders, he was driving a BMW that was a gift from his father. It seems that he saw women as the one material possession he could not have, and he felt deprived. The imaginings of his mind, in other words, were fueled by an unrestrained sense of entitlement.

His parents and therapists came to understand the dark and dangerous turns he was making in the way he viewed the world. He posted threatening videos. His parents contacted the police, requesting that they intervene. The police arrived at young Elliot's door, asked a few polite and deferential questions, and closed the investigation.

The police, it seems, never bothered to inquire about whether Elliot had any weapons. Elliot, however, acknowledged in his own writings that had the police sought weapons, it would have been all over for him. The larger question thus presents itself: How in the world did such a disturbed young man come to own an arsenal of deadly weapons?

This is an outrageous state of affairs. We must get serious about guns. Guns are not playthings. They are not ornaments. They are lethal weapons. The whole point and purpose of a firearm is to put holes in objects -- including living human beings.

We need to shift the presumption about gun ownership in this country away from a rights-based perspective. Gun ownership must be premised on responsibility. And we can draw on brain science as a means of determining fitness to own a gun. Can someone control his or her impulses? Do they have violent tendencies? If they do, they should not own a gun.

Sorry, gun ownership should not be the universal right and privilege of every so-called red-blooded American. The presumption should always favor public safety, and that means keeping guns out of the hands of people who may abuse them. With rational gun control laws tied to what science can tell us about human behavior, we might hope to put a limit to the senseless, needless tragedy of gun violence.

These teachings are in accord with the lesson Pope Francis has been delivering since that day in March, 2013, when he chose the name Francis. "Don't forget the poor." On the day of his election, Pope Francis recalled, his good friend the Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes spoke to him in those very words. And it is clear that Pope Francis has taken those words very much to heart.

The Pope's call for economic justice happily coincides with the publication of a new report, authored by E.J. Dionne, William Galston and others. Published by the Brookings Institution, the report ("Faith in Equality: Economic Justice and the Future of Religious Progressivism") recognizes that historically there has been a close relationship between progressive thought and the Church. Before the Civil War, in the early nineteenth century, it was progressive Protestants -- especially Quakers and Unitarians -- who raised high the banner of the anti-slavery movement.

For most of the twentieth century, from the early 1900s to the 1980s at least, American Catholics provided steady guidance and support for progressive causes. That pantheon of heroes included Msgr. John A. Ryan (1869-1945). He was a "Right Reverend New Dealer" according to his biographer. Msgr. Ryan popularized if he did not actually invent the term "living wage." He argued relentlessly over decades for the adoption of the minimum wage.

And then there is the saintly Dorothy Day (1897-1980). The co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Day was responsible for consistently calling attention to the plight of America's neediest. Nor should we forget the bishops who in 1919 issued their "Proposal for Social Reconstruction." Among other policy recommendations, they urged the United States to adopt a program of "comprehensive ... insurance against illness, invalidity, unemployment and old age."

The Dionne and Galston report celebrates this past, but also asks important questions about what happened to the once powerful alliance between Christians and progressives. They trace the splintering of this alliance to the 1980s and the rise of the religious right.

The religious right began as a reaction to the shifting sexual ethics of the 1970s. But the religious activists who aligned with the Republican Party in seeking the reversal of Roe v. Wade may have failed in that goal, but they nevertheless remained unshaken in their new political allegiance. They have now broadly accepted a right-wing agenda, including suspicion of the social programs once so widely supported by believers.

At the same time, Dionne and Galston poignantly note that the religious right gave rise to a reaction against its agenda. Americans have become more secular, at least partially because of what they see as the excessive judgmentalism and hypocrisy of the religious right. And this has paradoxically made it more difficult for religious progressives to find political refuge, since many in the Democratic Party, their ancestral home, now find all religious claims suspect.

Still, I find the Dionne and Galston report an important development in rebuilding the connections between religious progressives and electoral politics. Their suggestions, indeed, comport well with Catholic social thought. I'd like to identify three areas where Catholic thought could help support and sustain religious progressive ideals:

(1) Dionne and Galston call for greater attention to be paid to the poor. And this must always be the focus of progressive concerns. Jesus, after all, ministered first and foremost to the poor. But even while we never lose sight of the poorest among us, we should also broaden our vision to support the rights of labor.

This is in keeping with Catholic social thought. Pope Leo XIII in his famous encyclical Rerum Novarum (literally, "On Revolution"), condemned the mistreatment of the working classes. Thanks "to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition," Pope Leo lamented, workers have been forced to endure conditions "little better than that of slavery itself" (paragraph 3). Leo insisted that it was the solemn duty of Catholics to respect the rights of labor and alleviate these outrages.

Generations of religious progressives found inspiration in these paragraphs by Leo and Pius as they labored for the rights of the oppressed. We would do well to turn to them again.

(2) Dionne and Galston also cite the need for immigration reform. Millions of undocumented women and men, many who know no other home than the United States, inhabit a legal netherworld, where they are not only subject to economic exploitation but live in continuing fear of deportation. These hard-working, law-abiding people must be put on a path to citizenship. Reform is urgently needed.

Some members at least of the American Catholic hierarchy are taking these lessons to heart and all Catholics should do the same. The American economy would benefit, as would American society. And so would the millions of immigrants who now proudly call America home.

(3) Finally, Catholic social thought can help in yet another way: Catholicism has developed a deep and rich notion of the common good which all progressives might call upon. American political speech has been coarsened in recent decades by a debased Ayn Randian individualism. We inhabit a world in which the public financing of health care and education, for instance, are routinely denounced as "socialism."

This debasement of language by the right needs to be countered. And, again, we can turn to the words of that good and great Pope, St. John XXIII. The whole purpose of the State, he wrote "is the realization of the common good in the temporal order." And that must include protecting the rights and meeting the needs of "its weaker members."

Health care is a right. Education is a right. The vocabulary of Catholic social teaching permits us to make that case. A revitalization of the language of the common good would allow progressives -- whether secular or religious -- to confront the more noxious elements of Randian right-wing thought.

We seem to stand at the threshold of the re-invigorating of progressivism. This is true in the secular as well as the religious world. In the Vatican, there is a Pope who now gives voice to the principles of social justice. Young people seem more altruistic today than perhaps ever before. E.J. Dionne and William Galston may find the timing of their report propitious. I, for one, look forward to the rebirth of religious progressivism.

04/28/2014

Santo subito! -- "Sainthood now!" That was the urgent plea of the crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square in April, 2005, as Pope John Paul II lay dying. If the crowd had had its way, he would have been proclaimed a saint the very moment he died. And in truth, the canonization process has been extremely brisk. John Paul II has been dead only nine years and the Church stands ready to canonize him on April 27.

The passage of years, however, has allowed for a more sober assessment of his pontificate. For sure, John Paul II did things that make him worthy of canonization. There is no question that he was a deeply prayerful man who authored profound reflections on the meaning of Jesus and his mission. He provided a great witness to courage, first when he was shot in May, 1981, and then, two decades later, as an elderly victim of Parkinson's. He rallied Poland and Eastern Europe in the Cold War. Where others might have been intemperate, his messages always encouraged resolute, peaceful, non-violent resistance.

Still, the perspective of time allows us to realize that his pontificate had the effect not of strengthening but rather of weakening the Church in a number of crucial respects. And we would be a friend to history -- and to the Church -- if we acknowledged these flaws, for they are not insignificant.

First, there was the priestly pedophilia crisis. It was in the middle 1980s when the public first began to get a sense of its enormity. In 1983, the national media highlighted the serial abuse committed by a priest of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, Fr. Gilbert Gauthe. And two years later, in a report to the American Bishops' Conference, Fr. Thomas Doyle detailed the depth of the problem and predicted that the pedophilia crisis might be the largest disaster to confront the Church "in centuries."

Fr. Doyle was right of course. And a healthy Church would have responded with shock, yes, but then with a thorough house cleaning. Regrettably, it has been three decades and the house cleaning is still less than adequate. Why? There are many reasons, but one contributing factor was the culture of clericalism that came to dominate the Catholic hierarchy in the 1980s and 1990s.

Priests and bishops were said to be special, set apart for leadership in the Church. Bishops, in particular, came to see themselves not as men dedicated to service and compassion but as defenders of the Church against her enemies, including, to the Church's great shame, the victims of abuse. John Paul II set the tone for his bishops.

And the crisis worsened as he aged. Pontificating excuse-makers duly explained that he lacked the capacity to grasp its scale. In the Poland of his youth, his apologists recited, many priests faced trumped-up charges of child abuse and now the aged Pope could not accept that these charges were genuine. Both for the clericalism he promoted and the cognitive dissonance he could not overcome, John Paul II bears at least some of the responsibility for the crisis.

On a very different note, John Paul II was celebrated in his day for the ways in which he defined doctrine. The post-Vatican-II Church of the 1970s, it was said, had been too experimental. Scholars wrote about liberation theology. Church historians examined tradition in path-breaking ways. Priests explored a variety of ways of doing liturgy. Yes, there were excesses. Yes, there was naiveté, enough to go around, but there was also genuine excitement and real life to the Church.

John Paul II sought to curb this enthusiasm, mistaking exuberance for heterodoxy. He craved certainty even while despising intellectual diversity. The Catholic Church was one and should speak with a single voice. A generation of Catholic scholars, the best and brightest minds the Church had, were investigated and silenced by John Paul II's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A trained theologian, he attempted to write into Catholic dogma many of his own propositions, thinking them to be universal truths.

Going forward, these efforts to create a comprehensive uniformity of doctrine may prove to be among the most unfortunate aspects of John Paul II's pontificate. Take, for example, his theology of the body, which he developed in a series of sermons in the early 1980s and which forms the basis of the sexual teachings found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1992.

Assuming what he wished to prove, John Paul II used the creation account -- "male and female he created them" -- as justification for a sexual ethic that now urgently requires rethinking. In the Catechism, he described same-sex attraction as "objectively disordered" (para. 2358). Same-sex relationships, he said were incapable of "proceed[ing] from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity" and so "[u]nder no circumstances can they be approved" (para. 2357).

We know, of course, that same-sex attraction is part of the natural variability of human sexuality. We recognize from simply observing love-in-action that genuinely self-giving, life-promoting relationships are not only possible but common among gay people. Gay people love and live, hurt and heal in exactly the same ways as heterosexuals.

Beginning in the middle 1990s, John Paul enlisted as a full-fledged combatant in the culture war. And this long twilight struggle of his papacy led to a generation of Catholics coming of age who can only conceive of the Church as the guardian of orthodoxy in a hostile world. Their websites are prolific. They are hasty to denounce their foes, fast to pronounce anathema, and quick to read people out of the Church. They rush to defend the Church, but in their misguided zeal, they only weaken it.

John Paul II, in brief, inherited a Church that was intellectually supple and mentally vigorous. It was a Church that was open to new questions and new experiences. It understood its mission as the implementation of the Gospel in all its richness -- embracing the poor, welcoming the marginal. John Paul bequeathed a Church that is inward-looking, defensive and brittle -- a Church that is altogether too quick to abandon whole dimensions of the Gospel message in order to wage a losing culture war.

In retrospect, had John Paul II chosen to do what his immediate successor did -- retire at an appropriate time -- he would have stepped down around 1995. Our assessment would be different. But we must assess his legacy in its totality. And when we do, we realize that recovery from it will be a years-long process.

04/09/2014

Welcoming -- the sacrament of Baptism in the Catholic Church is the sacrament of welcoming. The child is presented to the Church, the community of believers, usually by the parents. The priest calls upon the parents, the godparents, and the entire congregation, to assume the solemn obligation of raising the child in the faith. And then the child is baptized, water poured over her head, as the priest pronounces the time-honored formula -- "in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

Baptism can be performed privately, of course, especially in danger of death. But it makes most sense when it is done as part of a community celebration. Everyone shares in the delight and the warmth.

On April 5, there took place in Cordoba, Argentina, a baptism that augurs coming change in the Catholic Church. A little baby, two-month old Umma Azul, was baptized into the Catholic faith. That may seem unremarkable until one realizes that the parents were a recently married lesbian couple.

The Advocate left little doubt that he was. The article quoted a speech he delivered before a gathering of religious orders: "Gay unions raise challenges for us today which for us are sometimes difficult to understand." He went on: "I remember a case in which a sad little girl confessed to her teacher: 'My mother's girlfriend doesn't love me.'"

The Italian text of the Pope's speech used the feminine "fiancee," indicating that the Pope was specifically talking about a gay, engaged couple. He advised his listeners to reach out to couples like these, always bearing in mind the children: "We must be careful not to administer a vaccine against the faith to them." These may look like small steps, but in a Church whose leadership just two or three years ago would have struck a much harsher note, this is progress.

And this brings us to Umma Azul. Two young women approached Archbishop Carlos Nanez of Cordoba, Argentina, requesting baptism for their daughter. They were directed to a parish priest who assisted them in preparing for baptism. Archbishop Nanez also made sure to contact the Holy See. While the Holy See did not publicly authorize the baptism, it clearly must have sent a clear "go-ahead" signal.

The Archbishop defended the decision to perform the baptism by referring to the rights of the infant involved: "The Church... demonstrates that she is a merciful and wide-reaching mother, in order to open the doors of salvation." "Baptism is the right of every human person." The Pope, the Archbishop reminded his listeners, believed this himself.

The right wing, it goes without saying, has been in an uproar over this action. Rorate Caeli, the traditionalist website, is probably as good a thermometer as there is for taking the measure of the right wing's fever pitch. Rorate reminded its readers that this baptism seemed to violate canon law: "There must be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion," reads canon 868 sec. 1. Rorate harrumphed that this was impossible in little Umma's case.

Clearly, Pope Francis and Archbishop Nanez disagree. They certainly know the canon law and they must believe that, in fact, there is a "founded hope" the child will be raised Catholic.

So what does this mean? On the purely personal level, it means a baby has been brought into the Church. Two young women who, judging by the photographs of the event, must love each other and their child very dearly, have been brought closer to the faith. The community of believers in Cordoba has been enriched by this experience.

On a larger level, it means that the Catholic Church has taken a small (dare I say "baby?") step toward becoming more inclusive. As I have written before, our scientific knowledge of human sexuality has evolved substantially in just the last three or four decades. We recognize now, what we did not fully appreciate in the 1970's -- that being gay is part of the natural range of human sexuality. And civilly, legally, we have come to give effect to this understanding by expanding our institutional structures -- marriage, the family -- to accommodate gay people.

Pope Francis is cautiously moving the Church in the direction of greater accommodation. He does not wish to split the Church. A glance at the right-wing blogs indicates real anger at even these limited steps. So we should not expect abrupt, revolutionary action from Pope Francis.

Still, those are worries for another day. Right now, I just want to say to Umma and her parents -- Welcome to the Catholic Church. I am delighted to be in community with you. And have a wonderful, blessed Easter!

04/03/2014

Sergei Illiaronov informed the press a few days ago that President Vladimir Putin of Russia has an insatiable appetite. He intends to return to Russia's control all of the territory once held by Czar Nicholas II (reigned 1896-1918), including the independent Baltic states, Belarus, and even Finland.

Illiaronov knows Putin well. He served as Putin's chief economic advisor during his first years as President (2000-2005). We should take statements like this seriously, and we should ask what is it that motivates Putin to contemplate a return to czarist conquests.

I submit that what is driving Putin is a radical, romantic conservatism. When Americans think of conservatism, they tend to think of unfettered free markets, expanding opportunities for capital, and free trade. There is a militarist dimension to American conservatism, but it seems increasingly to be a vestigial carry-over from the Cold War. Had September 11 not happened, American conservative foreign policy would most likely resemble the Rand-and-Ron-Paul agenda much more than it already does. At its best, American conservatism takes as its calling card the principles of ordered, virtuous freedom.

Putin's conservatism is not like this. It strongly resembles nineteenth and early twentieth century conservatism. It is much more European than its American counterpart. Putin's worldview is indebted, directly or derivatively, not to Friedrich von Hayek or Milton Friedman, but to thinkers like the Frenchman Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) or the Germans Friedrich von Meinecke (1862-1954) and Carl Schmitt (1888-1985).

There are four elements to this brand of conservatism that appear to have particular appeal to Putin:

1. It is nostalgic, looking backward to past triumphs as a way to repudiate and to remedy the present broken state of affairs. As such, it seeks the restoration or at least the reenactment of a lost and cherished golden age.

2. It celebrates the nation as an ethnic, linguistic, and cultural ideal. National boundaries that do not respect this vision of the nation are seen as arbitrary and in need of tearing down.

3. It strives for a close alliance between church and state, seeking legitimacy in God's favor. The nation, after all, has a special providential character and is predicated upon old-fashioned morality.

4. Finally, it relies upon a strong sovereign power that aims at decisive corrective action.

Putin's words and deeds correspond neatly to each of these categories. Putin has made it plain many times that he looks fondly upon a lost golden era, famously saying, nearly a decade ago, that he considers the dissolution of the Soviet Empire to be "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [twentieth] century." And he has made an effort to stir Soviet-era nostalgia, reviving old medals and awards, presiding over war memorials, and minimizing Stalin's atrocities, even while eulogizing his accomplishments. He's even sought to commemorate Leonid Brezhnev's rule.

But it is not nostalgia for the Soviet Union that energizes Putin so much as it is wistful fondness for the grandeur of the czars. His most recent presidential inauguration occurred in the old czarist throne room. He has opened museums to pay homage to the memory of the Romanov dynasty. His yearning for Finland is of a piece with this. The Romanovs, after all, built their dynasty upon steady geographic expansion, from Poland and Scandinavia in the West, to the Bering Sea in the East, even claiming Alaska and colonizing parts of coastal North America. In his reminiscences, Putin is conjuring up some powerful ghosts.

Putin's commitment to the Russian nation as cultural and linguistic ideal is also evident, especially as he ratcheted up pressure on Ukraine. He acted in Crimea, he said, to protect the Russian population there. He has shown similar solicitude for Russian speakers in other parts of Ukraine and in other regions of the old Soviet Union, such as Georgia and Moldova.

Nationhood for Putin is not a diverse, inclusive liberal democracy dependent upon the tidy observance of procedural norms for its strength. No. For Putin, it is the atavistic call of blood and soil, language and tradition. While one must be cautious in drawing parallels with the rise of Hitler, it is not out of place to note that this is the same battle cry that was led to so much grief and suffering in the middle twentieth century.

Perhaps most surprising, given Putin's background as a committed Communist KGB officer, is his new alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church. Of course, Russian czars always enjoyed a close relationship with the Church and thus it was only natural that Putin should slide into a similar role. When Putin took the oath of office for the third time in May, 2012, the swearing in was accompanied by prayers by Russian Patriarch Kirill.

This was, however, not some pro forma prayer service that one might encounter in the West. Putin has expended large amounts of political capital in reconstructing the Russian Church into a semblance of its former glory. He has rebuilt old church buildings and commissioned new ones. When the punk rock group Pussy Riot staged a bit of performance theater in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February, 2012, Putin took a hand's off attitude as the Church sought -- and obtained -- harsh, two-year-long jail terms against the women involved. Not surprisingly, Patriarch Kirill gushed his enthusiasm over Putin, calling him a "miracle of God."

Recently, as the Pussy Riot verdicts indicate, the Church has been moving in the direction of a militant social conservatism. Patriarch Kirill has denounced liberalism and feminism as grave threats to the political and moral order. But he has reserved most of his harshness for gays. In this, he has enjoyed the full cooperation of Vladimir Putin and the State Duma, which has enacted anti-gay legislation. Indeed, the word "gay" has now become a common slur in Russia, used as shorthand to denounce all sorts of perceived Western "corruption."

Putin has even acted to build alliances with social conservatives in other nations, including the United States. Personally, I see this attempt at bridge-building as driven by the genetically-encoded instincts of Putin's upbringing. Always look for a sympathetic following in the West, leftists in the Cold-War days, right-wingers today.

Finally, there is Putin the sovereign leader. He is notorious in the West for his many athletic stunts -- riding horses, hunting, fishing, hang-gliding, posing bare-chested, equal parts bravado and testosterone. But there is a method to his seeming madness. And that is the desire to present himself as the strongman so many Russians crave. More substantively, Putin's agenda aims to deliver on that expectation, most spectacularly, of course, in the wars he has helped to launch, first against Georgia and now against Ukraine. He truly aims to be the "Twenty-First Century Czar."

Does Putin really believe in a radical, romantic conservative agenda? Or is he still the clever KGB operative, manipulating symbols near and dear to the Russian soul so as to consolidate power? Or is he acting from desperation, fearful that if he does not arouse the passions of nationalism, the Russian people, already in steep demographic decline, will sink into the mire of apathy and ennui? My own guess is that he is moved by some admixture of each of these elements. Putin may not even be sure himself where the pose ends and his true political commitments begin. Still, whether he is posturing or acting from deep, sincerely-held belief, he is playing with fire.

What is the West to do? Clearly, it was appropriate to suspend Russia from membership in the G-8. The G-8 is more than a trading bloc, it is a group of nations united by a shared belief in liberal, democratic ideals. Russia has always been an uneasy fit, its membership reflective more of aspiration than reality. But continued membership now, in light of Russian conduct in Ukraine, is simply indecent. More broadly, the West must stand up for liberal values. We must defend human rights and the equality of all persons. We should reach out to western sympathizers within Russia, and there are many, in order to build common ground with those who share our values and reject the seductive, self-destructive siren song of Putinism.

03/24/2014

Robert Grosseteste -- yes, that Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253), the medieval thinker and the bishop of Lincoln -- has made scientific headlines. A collaboration between physicists and medievalists has found that "[i]n his treatise on light, written in about 1225, Robert Grosseteste describes a cosmological model in which the Universe is created in a big-bang like explosion and subsequent condensation."

No, Grosseteste had not secretly solved Einstein's theory of relativity or performed the other equations necessary to prove the Big Bang as scientists describe it today. But Grosseteste was a keen observer of the world around him, a dedicated scientist, and a man fearless in exploring the frontiers of knowledge. He had insightful and original things to say, particularly about the nature of light. And, yes, he was a bishop of the Catholic Church, although (perhaps this comes as no surprise) he had frosty relations both with the popes of his day and the archbishop of Canterbury.

I am reminded of Grossetestes' contributions to scientific advancement when I see the reaction of biblical fundamentalists to the remake of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Three decades after Sagan first brought theorizing about the universe and all within it to the popular imagination, this new version of Cosmos means to present, in docu-drama format, the recent discoveries in the world of science.

The episodes that have aired so far might be subject to some mild criticism. (I wish, for example, that Grosseteste might have been given equal time as that tragic episode in church history, the condemnation and burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno). That said, I like Cosmos. I like its commitment to curiosity, to imagination, to its cheerful admonition to always be daring in the pursuit of truth. I like the story it has told so far, about how the universe assumed the shape it has today, and how life evolved from simple to complex.

As I wrote last May, Christians must confront scientific illiteracy. And this is a good opportunity to do so. Answers in Genesis should absolutely not receive any air time. None. They do not have a valid scientific viewpoint to present, and television networks should not humor them by pretending they have something valuable to say.

Let us consider the review of the Cosmos episode "Standing Up in the Milky Way" that appeared on the Answers in Genesis website on March 11, 2014. Signed by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, a Tennessee obstetrician, the review challenged the "cosmic calendar," which estimates the age of the observable universe to 13.8 billion years. Dismissively placing quotation marks around "observational science," Mitchell attacks the 13.8-billion number as something that is based on "interpretations of scientific data."

Mitchell wields the term "interpretations" like a dirty word. To her, there are "observations," that are pure and pristine, and "interpretations," which are flawed human suppositions about what the observations say. Mitchell, of course, knows better. She know. She must know. Her medical education would have taught her this much, that data, standing alone, cannot convey meaning. Data is nothing more than meaningless trivia without an intelligent mind seeking to order it, arrange it, give it meaning -- in a word, interpret it. Interpretation is essential to scientific inquiry, as, indeed, it is to all learning.

Unfortunately, the Answers in Genesis project rests on nothing more than insinuations meant to arouse suspicions in the unsophisticated or the unwary. In brief, it does not seek to be scientific so much as to treat scientific inquiry as a conspiracy theory by secularists intending to undermine a good, old biblical worldview.

Mitchell, who seems to present herself as some kind of expert on the origins of life, has produced a whole stream of essays in the same vein as her review of Cosmos. In an essay on March 15, 2014, she purports to debunk some recent findings about the "Cambrian explosion," that period of time, around 550 million years ago, that saw an explosion of multicellular life. What caused this sudden explosion? What role did oxygenation play? And what led to the oxygenation? Primitive sponges growing in shallow seas? Small, unicellular animals? Serious scientists are engaged in vigorous debate on these questions.

Mitchell, however, takes the existence of this debate as evidence of an irresolvable controversy that ought to be answered by recourse to the Bible: "[I]f we accept God's eyewitness account in the Bible declaring that He created a habitable earth and all kinds of living things about 6,000 years ago," then this debate is put to rest.

Again, this is not science. It is not even good theology, even assuming for the moment that the creation account was meant to be taken literally. Mitchell describes God as giving an "eyewitness account." But nothing in the creation account makes this claim. The creation account is a third-person narrative, told by an unidentified third party, reciting stories of God's mighty deeds. To say that it is an "eyewitness" account, in other words, is an interpretation not derivable from the words of the text.

For its success, Answers in Genesis depends on something very deep in the American folk consciousness: conspiracy theory. You can go all the way back to the beginning of the Republic and find embedded in the American consciousness a suspicion that there were roomfuls of very intelligent men and women conspiring clandestinely to bring about wicked results. Taking Answers in Genesis' requests for equal air time would only contribute to rising scientific illiteracy in this country. And in a competitive global marketplace, where science is the key to remaining an advanced society, Answers in Genesis must remain on the margins.

03/11/2014

It has been a year since the white smoke poured forth from the chimney erected atop the Sistine Chapel signaling the election of Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis. His election has ushered in significant developments in the way the Papacy does business and how that influences the Church and the world. Let's review a few:

1. Pope Francis is not afraid to reveal his humanity.

In his interview with Corriere della Sera just a few days ago, he dropped revealing hints about the relationship he had with his girlfriend before seminary days. But he has been upfront about his humanity from the very beginning. He paid his own hotel bill following his election. He lives not in the Apostolic Palace, but modestly in a guest house on Vatican grounds, surrounded by the comings and goings of people with every day concerns. He invites homeless people to dine with him. He poses for a "selfie" with a group of visiting Italian teenagers. The self-imposed austerity and aloofness of prior popes is not part of his way of doing business.

2. He has invented new ways of talking.

Because the papacy represents the highest teaching authority in the Catholic Church, its modes of speech have been carefully circumscribed by tradition and law. Popes teach through encyclicals, or allocutions, or apostolic exhortations. These forms of speech have precisely graded values which allow Catholics to know how much solemnity should attach.

Pope Francis, however, speaks in new and bold ways. He gives newsmaker interviews, and big ones. He holds long press conferences on airplanes. He sits for interviews not just with the Catholic press but the Italian secular press -- even La Repubblica, owned and edited by one of Italy's foremost atheist public intellectuals. He gives off-the-cuff, down-to-earth sermons. He warns vividly against sins -- gluttony, greed, gossip -- and calls people to follow Christ by paying heed to the least among us. He even cold-calls people who write to him asking for prayers.

He refers to himself, accurately, but modestly, as "Bishop of Rome." He means thereby to remind his brother bishops of their role as collegial governors of the Church. When it came time to renew his passport, he did so as an Argentinian. As a head of state, he is entitled to travel on a Vatican City passport. But it seems he wishes to reduce the earthly, secular side of the Catholic Church and this is a small step in that direction. The logic of the papal monarchy, after all, ran its course in the 1870's when Pope Pius IX lost the papal state to Garibaldi. And Pope Francis, in many respects, is completing that logical development as he deemphasizes all of the renaissance ritual that still surrounds the Holy See.

4. He is renewing our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.

Jesus' central concern was service to the margins of society. He called tax collectors and prostitutes to be among his closest followers. He dined with sinners. He rescued a woman about to be stoned for adultery. He sat down with the Samaritan woman at the well, who had been married five times and was now living with a man who was not her husband, and he promised her the gift of eternal life. Time and again, Jesus emphasized that his followers had to put the poor first and foremost in their hearts and minds.

And in large ways and small, Pope Francis is trying to imitate Jesus. African economic immigrants are shunned in Italy. And so Pope Francis traveled to Lampedusa to welcome them and to mourn the many who die every year trying to cross the Mediterranean. He washed the feet of a youthful Muslim woman confined in a Roman prison last Holy Thursday. And over and over again, he calls attention to the plight of the poor. An economy that mourns the loss of stock market valuation while ignoring the needs of the homeless, the destitute, the mentally and emotionally ill, is a dehumanizing economy, an economy in need of reformation.

5. Pope Francis has taken the Church's focus off of a single-minded obsession with theological correctness.

In 1978, when Pope John Paul II was elected, the great preoccupation was the restoration of ecclesial discipline. And this became a major focus of his pontificate. Under the supervision of Joseph Ratzinger, his loyal prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, investigations were launched into dozens of Catholic writers. Hans Kung, Charles Curran, Leonardo Boff, and Gustavo Gutierrez were just a few of the better known names.

By 2013, the Church was suffocating in the grip of this boundary-police Catholicism. A search of the Catholic blogosphere would reveal dozens of websites dedicated to detailed and inward-looking analysis of correct practice and criticism and condemnation of anything that did not conform.

Pope Francis is not a border patrolman. He dismissed some of the more extreme aspects of this single-mindedness as "narcissism" and "pelagianism." He has recommended that Catholics "make a mess." In speaking with a group of Latin American nuns, he told them not to be afraid to make mistakes in the service of the Lord. Do not fear a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he advised them. A living, growing Church is a Church that needs breathing room. It needs freedom. And Pope Francis is ready to let experiments flourish.

6. He has begun much-needed structural reform.

Realizing that the Curia has become sclerotic and dysfunctional, he has turned to a select group of eight cardinals, drawn from different corners of the world, to advise him on important matters confronting the Church. There is even speculation that he is planning to build a parallel Curia that can streamline and assume many of the old structure's duties.

Along these lines, perhaps the most important steps Francis has taken are with respect to Vatican finances. He named George Cardinal Pell as "Secretary for the Economy," tasking him with the administration of the Church's material wealth. He has also moved to reform the Vatican Bank, firing most of the old team and bringing in a new group of administrators. He has pledged transparency, and the early reports are good.

Still, the world waits for a more visible response on the matter of clerical sex abuse. The Pope's actions thus far have been timid. To be sure, Pope Benedict did more to remedy this grave injustice than he has received credit for, and the same may be true of Pope Francis. But the public must be reassured, and only visible, public action can provide the necessary reassurance.

As he revealed in his newspaper interviews, he is a man with a high regard for secular culture. His favorite musicians, his favorite painters, his favorite movie directors, are all secular artists. This is a man who does not see either himself or the Church as standing walled off from the world, a Fortress Ecclesia standing strong against a secular tide. He is open to the good things that secular culture has to offer.

It is impossible to wage cultural war if you have an accepting view of the culture. And it is therefore not surprising that he wishes to deemphasize some of the hot button issues. He knows that the Church is crying out for internal reform, and that is where his energies must focus.

8. "Who am I to judge?"

These five words may define Pope Francis' pontificate. He made this statement when asked about gays in the Church. "When God looks at a gay person does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?" So inquired Pope Francis. "We must always consider the person."

Pope Francis is a pastoral pope. And pastors always consider the person. His response to gays flows from his desire always to meet individuals in the circumstances of their lives. Catholics believe that individuals are judged individually, on their merits, based on the particular realities of their lives. What Pope Francis is doing is driving this point home. No categorical judgment is possible. Bloodless abstractions have no place. Only the person.

In his March 5 interview with Corriere della Sera, he said much the same thing about contraception. Paul VI's teaching on contraception was a beautiful statement, but it must be administered with "much mercy." Its concrete application, in the lives of Catholics, is first and foremost a matter of conscience. This has always been Catholic teaching, of course, but it is an aspect of Catholic thought that was lost sight of amidst the grand theorizing of the last two pontificates.

The Jesuit Father John Langan, Professor of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown, has grasped this essential point in his essay on Pope Francis, "See the Person." Coming from a pastoral perspective, Langan asserts that the Church must consider "a new stance on the subject of homosexuality." Calling for "research ... across the fields of biology, medicine, social science, and ethics," Langan hopes for progress. He knows that the old way of doing business -- "we know what we know, what we don't know is not worth learning about" -- no longer works in the modern world. Pope Francis, with his "Who am I to judge?" has opened the door.

03/05/2014

On March 5, 2014, Pope Francis sat for an interview with Corriere della Sera, one of Italy's major newspapers. Once again, it was an interview that proved highly newsworthy for two reasons.

First, where gay couples are concerned, the Pope endorsed the possibility of civil unions. He recognized that such relationships may be necessary in order to meet the secular needs of gay couples (for example, the need for healthcare). This development is newsworthy because it is the first time a Pope has publicly expressed support for even this limited form of accommodation.

Much is entailed by this sort of concession which the Pope leaves unspoken. One must ask: How are Catholics to interpret the Catholic Catechism's denunciation of same-sex attraction as an intrinsic disorder that must in all cases be resisted? Has Pope Francis, implicitly at least, opened the door to a more nuanced and scientifically valid approach to the question of sexual attraction and commitment? It would seem that he has.

Second, Pope Francis has introduced an element of discretion in the Church's teaching on contraception. When asked about Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's teaching on birth control, he endorsed it and praised it for its counter-cultural beauty. At the same time, however, he recognized that not all can live up to its demands. "Pastoral ministry," he asserted, must "take into account the situations and that which it is possible for people to do." The encyclical, the Pope indicated, was intended to be applied with "much mercy."

In other words, Pope Francis is signalling that there is room for Catholics to engage in conscientious reasoning where the birth control encyclical is concerned. Being a good pastor, Pope Francis does not wish to get involved in discussing particular cases or situations. Such decisions are highly individual, and the Pope appreciates this. That a Pope would send this sort of signal, however, is nothing short of remarkable.

03/04/2014

The beauty of the Gospels lies in the way they force us to interpret the life of Jesus. The stories look straightforward enough. A deity is born to humble parents. He gradually reveals himself through miracles. He attracts followers. He is unable to convince the appointed authorities of his godhood, his powers fail him at crucial moments, and he is put to death. Triumphantly, he rises from the dead and ascends to eternal life.

What gives the Gospels their power is that they are much more than this simple outline. Their complexity requires interpretive choice. The Jesus we encounter is a man who comes from utter obscurity. He demands that his followers behave in absolutely altruistic, self-sacrificial ways. He sees his life's work as giving comfort to the afflicted. He travels among the poor, the lepers, the prisoners, the prostitutes and the outcasts. He says dangerous and subversive things. He realizes at his Last Supper that he may have pushed things too far. He is so anxious after dinner that when he withdraws to pray, he sweats blood. And, as he writhes in agony on the cross, he has the ultimate moment of self-doubt ("my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?")

We make our Jesus from the ways in which we assemble these elements. After all, that is the nature of great literature -- it forces us to make sense of ambiguity and conflicting layers of meaning. The stories of Jesus have survived over the millennia because they are much more than a simple story of triumph. Unfortunately, producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey fail in their newly-released film The Son of God, because their interpretation of Scripture is simplistic and triumphalist. Where there are choices to be made -- and with the Gospels, the choices abound -- Burnett and Downey have an unerring urge to favor the safe ones.

Consider the ways in which the producers portray the miracle stories. Since the days of St. Augustine, Christian writers have struggled with how to explain these texts. Must they be taken literally or are other explanations possible? St. Augustine himself found this a difficult question and finally concluded that Jesus' miracles, while real, could not have broken the laws of nature, but must have made use of other laws that we did not understand.

Burnett and Downey, on the other hand, give us a Jesus who might be described as a genial, polite, non-threatening superhero. In one of the movie's earliest scenes, we encounter Jesus walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He called out to a fisherman we later learn is Peter and convinced this hardened, skeptical man to cast off in search of fish. Suddenly, Peter's boat is swamped with fish. An underwater camera angle shows a smiling Jesus shepherding (if that is the right word) the fish into the incredulous Peter's nets.

And so go the miracle stories. We later see Jesus command a paralytic to rise and walk and find him multiplying loaves and fishes for the multitudes. And when the storm brewed up on the Sea of Galilee and Jesus came walking across the water towards the frail little boat filled with his earthly followers, we see a magnificent 10-foot tall Jesus proudly beckoning over the wind and the waves.

This whole set of scenes leads to what can be called an anti-climax -- Jesus' raising of Lazarus from the dead. The Gospel of John tells this story with real dramatic feel. Lazarus is a friend of Jesus and the brother of Mary, one of his followers. When he learned that Lazarus had taken ill, Jesus lingered where he was staying rather than hurrying his return to see him. Only after sensing inwardly that Lazarus had died does Jesus finally depart.

Drawing near, he is greeted by Martha and Mary and has it confirmed that Lazarus is dead. Emotions run high. Everybody wept, Jesus along with the women. His feelings ran so deep, even his enemies marveled: "See how he loved him!"

It is this back story that gives depth and humanity to John's account of the miracle, and it is this back story that is missing from the film. Instead, we are given Jesus, the God of easy triumphs, who walks confidently into the tomb where Lazarus has been laid, kisses him, breathes on the back of his head, and beckons him to arise. The scene is drained of the challenging emotional anguish of the Gospel account and becomes cliched and predictable.

In a movie a little more than two hours long, it is impossible to convey a complete account of Jesus' teachings. Indeed, one can exhaust weeks and months on such a project and never finish the task. Still, it is remarkable what is left out of the movie, including one of my own favorite biblical scenes.

This is the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, found in John, chapter four. It opens with a tired Jesus seated at a well when a woman walked up, bucket in hand, intending to draw some water. Jesus asked if he might have a drink and the two of them began to talk. Jesus revealed to her the secrets of her life, telling her that she had been married five times and was now living with a man outside of marriage. And then he promised to give her the gift of living water.

For me, this tale signifies the Jesus of the margins. Jesus is in a marginal community (a village in neighboring Samaria), and is speaking with a woman who is on the margins of her own society (given her deeply tangled marital history). And it is to her that he promises salvation. I wish I knew what Burnett and Downey thought of this passage, but they never told us.

Another remarkable omission from the movie is a core feature of Jesus' ministry -- and that is his consciousness of and service to the poor. The Jesus we encounter in the Gospels, especially in Luke but also in the other texts, has a keenly honed sense of class awareness.

Just consider the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16: 19-31) and how it begins: "There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores." By the end of Jesus' parable, it is the rich man who is consigned to hell and Lazarus who is rewarded with eternal life. This is the Jesus who knew and condemned economic sin. This whole side of Jesus' public witness is omitted from the film.

What is left in is the safe stuff: the "Our Father," bits from the Sermon on the Mount, a good deal about forgiveness of sins and the avoidance of hypocrisy. Jesus's teachings on marriage and divorce are left out, as is the miracle at the wedding feast at Cana. Those particular omissions puzzled me.

Around half of the film is focused on the events of Palm Sunday, the Last Supper and Jesus's Passion and Resurrection. One gets the sense that Burnett and Downey were stealing continuous backward glances at Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ in editing this portion of the movie. The violence in Son of God is carefully calibrated -- not as gross or as unhinged as Gibson's gory spectacle, but an excruciating level of blood and agony all the same.

While on the whole I am critical of the film, I must acknowledge that it does some things well. It injects Mary Magdalene unobtrusively, but insistently into Jesus' mission. A straightforward reading of the Gospels tells us that she was a crucial member of Jesus' company of disciples along with other women, and it is good to see her represented. The politics of Roman Judea are also portrayed with subtlety and sophistication. And, thanks to the decision to film on location in Morocco, the movie has a rich, Middle-Eastern texture to it. At times, you really do feel yourself transported back in time to first-century Judea.

And one finds some real character development. St. Peter, whom I have always understood as symbolic of fallen humanity, is depicted with the complexity that is due him -- he began as a man of uncertainty and doubt, struggled with understanding, experienced a crisis after denying Jesus, but emerged stronger at the end for the testing. Nicodemus, who is one of those mysterious followers of Jesus from within the Sanhedrin, is also endowed with a real flesh-and-blood personality. Still, Caiphas is portrayed as a one-dimensional villain from central casting and Pontius Pilate is not much better. Barabbas comes across as a barely articulate psychopath.

This is a movie, in other words, made for a comfortable, middle-brow, middle-class America. It is the Jesus of white picket fences and Readers' Digest. It is a world that is rapidly vanishing. Jesus will not go away, of course, but the world view that sustains the safe and sanitized superhero Jesus of Son of God is in increasing doubt.

02/25/2014

There has been a near constant stream of commentary from right-wing pundits claiming that America is in a headlong retreat from the world and that it is all President Obama's fault. If the President only stood taller, if he only spoke louder, if he only rolled up his sleeves and flexed his biceps, then the world would fall into line. Just like in the good old days.

Rhetoric like this might have made sense in the 1980's or even in the 1990's, but I think it is clear that such language no longer usefully contributes to America's standing in the world. From the close of World War II through the twilight of the George W. Bush Administration, America defined its place in the world essentially by means of its military superiority, if not its supremacy. Yes, America exercised "soft power." Yes, America was generous with its peace-building initiatives, and the American volunteer spirit was -- and is -- alive and well in service organizations like the Peace Corps. But the world was always aware that behind these ventures stood an American military that was ready to act in clearly defined ways.

Unquestionably, the Obama Administration has changed the ways the United States projects force. The United States cautiously aided the British and the French in Libya; it threatened force in Syria after President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons, but then sheathed its sword when it seemed diplomacy might resolve the crisis; it negotiated with Iran over its emerging nuclear capability rather than blustered. To be sure, the United States still knows how to use lethal force -- principally, however, this force is used in precisely-executed drone strikes or the lightning attacks of America's special forces.

So, America does not casually threaten war the way it once did and the world is not of a mind to pay heed anyway. Why? What is causing this tectonic shift in the way American force is asserted and perceived around the globe? I think that the confluence of two larger phenomena are at work here: The first is a sea-change in the way the American public views military engagement. And the second is an equally dramatic shift in the nature of global confrontation itself.

Let's begin with the war-weariness of the American public. Absent a compelling threat to the United States, there is substantial evidence that the American public would reject military involvement nearly everywhere. Consider the polling on Syria from last August and September, after it became known that Assad had gassed his people. While Americans were appalled at Assad's crimes, they were unwilling to commit to a military response. A CNN poll released the first week of September indicated 59 percent opposition to military intervention. A USA Today/Pew Research poll released in the same time frame revealed 63 percent opposition.

This war-weariness (war-wariness might be an even better term) is traceable in significant part to America's ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iraq invasion was sold as saving America from mushroom clouds, anthrax, and sarin gas. And then no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq. Then what was sold as a brief war of liberation transmuted into a grueling, grinding guerrilla war against an unwelcome American presence. Even Afghanistan devolved into an ambiguous conflict -- yes, al-Qaeda attacked us from bases in Afghanistan, but al-Qaeda is a murky entity, present in small cells throughout the Islamic World. Indeed, when al-Qaeda's guiding spirit, Osama bin-Laden, was finally tracked down, he was in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

A second factor contributing this shift in public sentiment is the rise of the millenial generation as a political force. The millenials are the first American generation in nearly a century to come of age in a world not shaped by binary global confrontation. There is no Hitler rising in Germany. There are no Axis powers overrunning the world. We are not fighting small wars in Korea or Vietnam that are sold and explained as adjuncts of that vast morality play known as the Cold War. To the extent that there has been international conflict in the last fifteen years, it has been of a limited and morally ambiguous kind.

Indeed, what colors the experience of millenials is not global conflict but the tenuous nature of the American economy. Late-stage capitalism, with its relentless cost-shifting onto those with the least power of resistance, has hollowed out the hopes and dreams of the millenial generation. You need a college education or a professional degree to get ahead, they are told. And, thanks to right-wing economists who have undermined the American belief in education as a public good, this has become an increasingly pricey proposition. So millenials are forced to borrow. And then they enter a job market that devours its young. For entirely understandable reasons, this is not a generation much inclined to pay heed to the old-fashioned saber-rattling that right wingers find so appealing and that once had the power to stir American hearts.

Immigration has also played a role in reshaping public mood. The United States has been refreshed from its beginning by immigrants, and we are now welcoming new arrivals from throughout the world -- Africa, Asia, Latin America. The United States is becoming a microcosm of the world, and this is a very good thing. Like millenials, however, America's new immigrant communities have no memory of the Cold War. And that truly matters. The Cold War was sold to the American people as a moral confrontation, a show-down between good and evil. Soviet Russia was dictatorial, expansionist, subversive, bent on global domination by fair means or foul. Several generations of Americans came of age ardently believing in this account. It echoes still in the ears of many people over the age of forty.

Immigrants, however, like millenials have no direct experience of this decades-long confrontation. It does not form part of their collective unconscious. Their experience of the world is shaped, quite understandably, by the politics of their old homelands and the exigencies of making a living in their new abode.

For a President to threaten force, that President must have the backing of the American people. And the dominant trope used to obtain that support, from Inchon to Baghdad, was the Cold War's "good versus evil." Millenials and immigrants, for entirely praiseworthy reasons, are no longer convinced by explanations that rely on this outdated narrative. Many older Americans, soured by Iraq and Afghanistan, also have their suspicions.

The other large phenomenon reshaping America's place in the world, then, is the nature of global confrontation itself. The Cold War was never truly reducible to "good versus evil." Too many other factors were always at work -- nationalism, anti-colonialism, competing economic interests, the ambitions of regional players. But policy-makers were generally able to make use of "us-versus-them" morality to rally the public.

But how do you do that in Syria? Assad is a brutal, murderous human being. He needs to be removed from office. All civilized women and men agree on that. But how? You don't want to empower al-Qaeda, which is steadily building a foothold in that battered land. They are every bit as wicked as Assad. The world agrees on the end result, but it is the means to get there that is the challenge. Prudence is the virtue that world leaders must exercise.

Consider also Iran. No one wants a nuclear Iran. But is confrontation the best policy? The Iranian theocracy is doddering. It has lost the support of the people and struggles to win even the elections it fixes. The imams who govern Iran may be gerontological marvels, but even gerontocracies finally run out of time. Patience serves our interests well.

In other words, I believe that President Obama is probably handling world events about as well as they can be handled. He seems to have a good feel for American public opinion. And he appreciates the complexity of the global order. He has finally the right blend of virtues -- prudence, patience, and real decisiveness, exercised quietly. We may not yet be able to speak of an Obama Doctrine, but when we do, I suspect it will take account of the points I've raised above.

02/24/2014

White supremacists and slave owners invented the doctrine of nullification -- the idea that the States possess the right to defy federal law where a State has concluded that the law in question was unconstitutional. Most Americans, I am sure, were confident that this idea died a well-deserved death at the time of the Civil War.

Regrettably, this is not the case. It seems that just days ago, on February 20, the Republican-controlled State Senate of Missouri revived that odious doctrine by passing a bill known as the "Second Amendment Preservation Act." People who believe in the rule of law and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution must speak out to denounce this dangerous gambit.

The radicalism embodied in this particular piece of legislation is breath-taking. It has its direct antecedents, however, in the debates over slavery that began in earnest in the 1820s and 1830s and that continued up to the advent of Civil War in 1861.

White Southerners from the earliest days of the American Republic had a consciousness of being different and isolated from other parts of American life. This sense of difference arose from the awareness that the Southern way of life depended upon the ownership of slaves.

By the 1820s, this sense of difference hardened into a perpetual state of grievance. White Southerners not only were not like other Americans. They saw themselves as the victims of the massed political power of the Northeast and the "West" (a broad category embracing in particular Ohio, Indiana and new settlements in places like the territory of Michigan).

In the late 1820s, White Southerners were especially upset with tariff legislation enacted by the Northern and Western states. This legislation had the effect of protecting domestic manufacturing and commercial interests even while it weakened foreign markets for Southern agricultural commodities.

It was opposition to the tariff that was the proximate cause for the invention of the doctrine of nullification. But the deeper cause, of course, was slavery. Slavery was the backbone of the Southern plantation economy and anything that weakened markets for its produce weakened the institution.

As developed by John C. Calhoun, Robert Y. Hayne and others, nullification was premised on the belief that the Constitution created a compact among the States. After all, it was the States that sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and it was the States that met in ratifying conventions to approve the finished text. The Constitution, furthermore, seemed to reflect this origin when it empowered presidential electors to vote by state and gave states equal representation in the United States Senate. All of this, the Southern theorists argued, meant the Constitution was an agreement among free and equal sovereign States.

And if the States were free, and equal, and sovereign, and if they had really joined together in voluntary compact, that meant that they could judge for themselves the constitutional soundness of federal legislation. If legislation was unconstitutional, States had not only the right, but the solemn duty to object and, in the final analysis, to disobey.

Daniel Webster answered this line of reasoning brilliantly in 1830. The Constitution could only be understood not as creating a compact, but as forming a Union among the States. It aimed to unite disparate peoples into a single nation, a single People, under a single set of laws. The People -- Webster consistently capitalized the term -- ratified the Constitution and gave it continuing force and power. It was the People who made their will known through their representatives in Congress. And it was the Supremacy Clause, Webster reasoned, that gave effect to the People's will by declaring that where conflict arose, federal law always superseded the particular laws of the States.

Webster had a grim foreboding of what might occur if the doctrine of nullification were ever taken seriously. Suppose, he said, South Carolina (then the chief exponent of nullification) were to decide that the tariff was unconstitutional. And suppose further that it concluded that therefore it could freely refuse payment of the tariff.

The Port Collector at Charleston might try to enforce federal law but, Webster predicted ominously, South Carolina would call up the militia to resist. The Commander-in-Chief, the President, would then be left with no choice, but to send troops to South Carolina. Webster had a name for South Carolina's contumaciousness: "Treason." At that point, South Carolina would be guilty of treason.

For a century-and-a-half, these dangerous ideas seemed safely consigned to the dustbin of history. The State Senate of Missouri, however, has chosen to arouse this beast from its slumber. And Americans must speak out. These ideas are discredited and have no place in modern society.

It is, furthermore, in the special interest of Republicans everywhere to denounce this action. For what we see in Missouri is the radicalization of a once-proud political party (the Act passed with the near-unanimous support of the Republican members of the State Senate). America needs a healthy two-party system. And when one of those two parties gives cover to a state legislature that plays games with dynamite, then our system is far from healthy.

02/19/2014

Tradition is of great significance to Catholics. The Catholic Catechism distinguishes among several types of tradition, all of which must be taken seriously. The first and most important kind is Sacred Tradition. It is the awareness and transmission of the Word of God from generation to generation. It was the means by which knowledge of Jesus was transmitted to the earliest Church communities before there was a Bible or an agreed-upon New Testament canon. It is this Sacred Tradition which is deepened and strengthened by the great Church Councils -- from Nicaea to the Second Vatican Council. But there are other forms of tradition also -- devotional traditions, which might attach to a saint or a pilgrimage site, or ecclesial traditions which might shape the liturgy or the Church calendar.

But what is meant by "Tradition" in a Church that is now 2000-years-old? When we speak of Tradition, we must speak of historical process. Tradition, after all, has significance only where the passage of time is concerned. But the historical process is not a phenomenon of nature. It is always the product of conscious choice and reflection.

Let us unpack this reasoning. The world and all that is in it is irreducibly historical. Every act we engage in, every word we utter, every thought that races unbidden through our minds, is historical. Consider a conversation I might have with a student: The instant I utter my first sentence, that sentence becomes a part of history and can only be retrieved through an historical process. Its exact wording, its intonation, its connotation, none of this can ever be precisely recovered. So, what is my student to do? She must process that sentence, make it her own, interpret it, and formulate a response. She must, in other words, interpret the past. And then, when I formulate my reply, I must go through the same process, now interpreting not only my first statement, but my student's understanding of it and her response to me.

This is a process that normally occurs so fluidly, so subconsciously, that we are unaware of its existence. Still, it is worth knowing that everything we say, everything we understand or apprehend, is a remembrance of things past. And not only is it a memory, it is necessarily a reinterpretation, an editing of what has gone before.

Nothing comes to us pre-thematically, furthermore, but is interpreted through prisms we have constructed for ourselves. We have categories of thought, into which we fit our memories, out of which we explain them. The past does not simply sit out there, in a pre-digested state. We mull it over, we meditate upon it, we reflect upon it. And the prisms we construct for ourselves, they constitute our value system, which in turn is formed from the communities of which we are a part. The world, in other words, is not only a remembrance of things past, but a continuing, shifting conversation about the meaning of those memories.

Now, what does this have to do with Tradition in the Catholic Church? It means at least this much, that Tradition is something we select, we make our own, we reinterpret. Indeed, this is the only way in which we can make Tradition come alive. For if we did not do this, Tradition would be nothing more than a meaningless inert text, mere letters on a page.

Let's think about how this has worked in the historical Church. Consider first the "Acts of Paul and Thecla." There is little in the way of devotion to St. Thecla today, so it is good to refresh our memories about this text. It is not canonical, it is not found in the New Testament, but it was nevertheless a text the early Church took very seriously.

The "Acts of Paul and Thecla," likely composed in stages over the course of the second century, recounts the tale of St. Thecla, purportedly the female traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. She was a virgin from a well-to-do pagan family in Asia Minor who heard Paul preaching and promptly abandoned her privileged life to follow him. She preached with Paul and embarked on a series of remarkable adventures. She survived an attack by lions in the arena, was adopted by the Queen of Thrace (whom she converted), and worked a steady stream of miraculous healings.

Her saintly deeds were the object of great devotion in the early Church. There is a Catacomb of St. Thecla in Rome. St. John Chrysostom preached on her merits and St. Ambrose governed the Diocese of Milan from the Cathedral of Holy Thecla. Clearly, her life is part of the deep and rich Tradition of the Church. That she is barely remembered today is the product, alas, of centuries of unfortunate choice.

The monks who converted Ireland in the early middle ages, however, developed a very different process for the forgiveness of sins. Confession was to be private. It was understood as medicine for the soul and, by analogy to medicine, could be repeated as often as needed. Penances might be severe, but, at least by Mediterranean standards, were not that long. The aim was to effect a spiritual cure and thereby bring about the healing of the sinner's soul.

This was a living, adaptable, fundamental reshaping of Tradition. The New Testament taught the forgiveness of sins, but the shape it took might be dramatically different based on the felt necessities of the age.

What does this mean for Catholics today? Tradition is not a prison-house. It is, rather, the dialogue we have with the past. This dialogue must be conducted with a preference for stability. If we love the great historical figures of the past -- and, as Christians, we are called to love everyone -- then a preference for stability is merely the respect that we owe to them. Even the word "tradition," derived from the Latin traditio, means something that is handed down, something that is bequeathed to us from the past.

But Tradition is not blind obedience to the past nor the rote repetition of past acts. Indeed, if we accept the reality of the historical process -- that every moment is necessarily a conscious reinterpretation of what has happened to us up to then - then eve blind obedience and rote repetition must be understand as entailing the conscious choice that this is the best means by which we follow what we believe to be Tradition today.

Tradition therefore is open-ended. The Irish monks who invented confession knew this, as indeed, have Christians of every age. To say this validates Jaroslav Pelikan's brilliant insight that Tradition is the living faith of the dead. We retrieve the past, but if it is to have any meaning, if it is to make any sense, then we must reinterpret it according to our experience, our needs, our reflective thought on where we stand today. As we approach what is increasingly looking like a turning point in Church history, it is good to bear these lessons in mind.

02/13/2014

I was in New York City the first week of February, where I was hosted by David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values. David, who was a prominent opponent of same-sex unions for several years, had a change of heart on the subject in 2012, writing in The New York Times "that the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same-sex relationships is over."

As part of his own continuing exploration of the subject, David brought me and another guest to his Institute to discuss the future of gay marriage. In the course of our conversation, I developed the lines of an argument that might help to advance the cause of gay marriage, even within the Catholic Church.

I began with the premise that Catholic moral theology ultimately rests on the foundation of an accurate understanding of the human person. In this sense, same-sex marriage is a question for the field known as "Christian anthropology." The norms and rules we live by must at a minimum not be contrary to human nature and must ideally promote a genuine understanding of human flourishing.

The prevailing anthropology of the person is grounded on a system of thought known as the "theology of the body." Insofar as it pertains to marriage, Pope John Paul developed this theology in a series of weekly reflections between September 1979 and April 1980. These reflections were later gathered into a small book and have conditioned Catholic understanding of the human personality for the last 30 years.

In this set of reflections, John Paul II proposed to study the Gospel of Matthew, 19: 4, the verse in which Jesus says to the Pharisees, "Have you not read that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female?" Seeking to understand this passage, John Paul II quickly turned his attention to the opening chapters of Genesis, where this text originally appeared. In explaining creation, the Pontiff was concerned especially with the physicality of our bodies. It is through the body that we realize our humanity. We are not disembodied. We are not bloodless abstractions. Rather, we are physical, flesh-and-blood beings.

And if it is through our bodies that we know and express our humanness, then, John Paul II continued, it is through our bodily design that we must understand our moral purpose. And, since we are mortal beings cognizant of the brevity of our lives, we must keep in mind the requirement of sexual reproduction. Maleness and femaleness -- complementarity, John Paul II called it -- thus becomes essential to marriage.

Such reasoning precluded the possibility of same-sex marriage as inconsistent with the divine purpose of creation. Indeed, the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes this conclusion explicit when it denounces even same-sex inclination as "objectively disordered" because of this perceived inconsistency with the divine plan.

I proposed in my conversation that the theology of the body need not be our starting point when analyzing marriage. There are different foundational premises we might use and still remain faithful Catholics. Thus we might begin our analysis with human reason and human psychology. There are deep and strong traditions within the Catholic Church supporting each of these as starting points for reasoning about sex and marriage.

For Thomas Aquinas, the morality of human action commences with human reason. For sure, our reason is imperfect. It is not divine reason, though it shares in some measure with it since we are made in the image and likeness of God. Original sin, however, warped our intellects. Even so, Thomas insists, we might reach a progressively clearer understanding of what it means to be moral through the steady exercise of our reason. Reason is open-ended and open-minded. It never assumes the conclusions it wishes to prove. Observation, investigation, ordered, disciplined curiosity about the world and all within it -- these are legitimate methods of inquiring about our moral duties. If our scientific understanding of the person evolves, then so must our moral expectations.

And if reason offers one starting point, psychological insight provides another. Within the Catholic Church, there are few areas where psychology has come to play a more significant role than in marriage. This is especially true in cases of matrimonial dissolution -- marriage annulments, to use the familiar term.

Contemporary annulment practice rests on the premise that only persons with authentic human freedom can marry. And freedom can be impaired by any number of psychological causes. The lessons of modern psychology are then brought to bear by tribunal personnel in assessing the maturity and psychological readiness of the parties for marriage. But the question naturally arises: If psychology can be used to assess the sacramental quality of marriage, if it can be employed to deepen and enrich our understanding of human freedom, can it also be used to expand the field of those eligible for marriage?

These two starting points might be used to build an alternate ground for understanding same-sex attraction. If we rely on our reason, if our reason is open to developing scientific insight, if we look to the recent findings of psychology, then we know that same-sex attraction is part of the natural variability of human sexuality. What it means to be human, in other words, not only embraces male and female, but it may also, in some cases, include same-sex attraction. If Catholics take this line of reasoning seriously, then it becomes impossible to speak of same-sex attraction as "objectively disordered."

But what of marriage? Here, one might turn to St. Augustine's Treatise on the Goods of Marriage. In the opening sentence of this work, St. Augustine defines marriage as "friendship" -- amicitia. The human person, St. Augustine asserts, is a "social being" made that way by our "human nature" (humana natura).

To be sure, St. Augustine argues that marriage serves three great goods: procreation, unity, and fidelity. But procreation is not marriage's highest purpose. Indeed, at points St. Augustine seems positively indifferent to procreation. He counsels couples to consider voluntary abstinence from sexual intercourse.

"The better the couple are," he said, "the earlier" they will have done this.

St. Augustine answered the objection, "What if everyone sought to abstain from intercourse?" with the response that then the City of God would be at hand "and the end of the world would be hastened."

For Augustine, the true significance of marriage was not procreation, but the enduring friendship of two human beings who are innately social creatures.

If this is so, then can the meaning of marriage be widened to include same-sex unions? I think so. Still, there is a large objection that arises from within the Augustinian tradition. All intercourse, St. Augustine maintained, had to be at least theoretically open to the possibility of procreation. It is this proposition that continues to form the core of the Catholic Church's teaching on contraception.

Recognition of same-sex marriage would thus require the Catholic Church to rethink the foundations of its sexual ethics, not only where same-sex attraction is concerned, but generally. And this is a very large undertaking indeed. There are some possible avenues for development, but I am afraid that I should save those explorations for another time.

01/22/2014

Don't yawn, but my training is in medieval canon law. And, yes, this is almost the ultimate sub-specialty (I have a special admiration, though, for those who do cuneiform legal studies). In my own work, I have focused in books and articles on a group of canon lawyers who flourished in the period roughly between 1200 and 1500.

Even working in a field that seems so old and dry, every so often you have the opportunity to stumble upon a text that is utterly unexpected. And that happened to me a while back when I was reading the work of a 13th century canon lawyer named Hostiensis. I was studying his definition of marriage. As was typical of Hostiensis, he went on for some pages. I worked my way patiently through his qualifications and distinctions. And then I stumbled upon -- and that is the right expression -- a question that seemed to leap off the page.

"May a man marry a man?" Hostiensis asked. No, Hostiensis was not about to open any progressive doors. This was the 13th century, after all. In fact, his answer may have set in motion many of the arguments we encounter today against same-sex marriage. What was remarkable was that he asked the question at all. My only explanation remains that he was a very bright man and he was showing off. He was going to ask a question that no one had ever thought to raise.

His response had two aspects to it: He both proposed arguments meant to explain heterosexual marriage and arguments that amounted to an intensely homophobic attack on same-sex unions. He began with creation. In the beginning, Hostiensis paraphrased Scripture, God made Adam and Eve, a man and a woman. He endowed them with reproductive capacity. And marriage must follow this divinely-mandated design. Male and female were "correlated" with one another. To use the modern ecclesiastical vocabulary, they were "complementary."

Furthermore, Hostiensis continued, marriage constituted a sacrament. It was a sign, a symbol, an instrument of grace. What it symbolized chiefly, he asserted, was Jesus's marriage to his Church. Jesus is male. The Church is female. Jesus, in coming to earth, in shedding his blood, in giving his life, co-mingled his essence with the Church. And this co-mingling could only be represented where a man married a woman, not another man.

Hostiensis, however, was not content to rest his argument there. He next veered in a viciously homophobic direction. Philosophers, Hostiensis's contemporaries, were then engaged in an exploration of the nature of sexuality. And they had concluded that there could only be one form of proper sexual intercourse: It had to be between a man and a woman, and it had to be open to at least the theoretical possibility of procreation. No strange positions. No coitus interruptus. No oral intercourse, or anal intercourse. No potions that had the effect of inducing sterility. No masturbation. Any form of sexual expression, except heterosexual sex open to procreation, was criticized as unnatural.

Hostiensis borrowed heavily from this philosophical current to make even more extreme homophobic claims. Indeed, he was prepared to advance one of the most hostile, homophobic suggestions I have encountered in a medieval text when he looked to a passage of Roman law, promulgated by two early Christian emperors, Constantius and Constans.

That text denounced men who "destroy the proper place of sex" and "criminally love that which confers no advantage." The two emperors recommended in such instances that the law should "arise and arm itself with the avenging sword of right and subdue these infamies with exquisite penalties." In plain language, these two Roman emperors called for the death penalty for gay sexual relations. I have read a number of medieval authors on marriage and sexual relations, and some of them said some pretty outrageous stuff. But Hostiensis's apparent approval of this passage of Roman law counts among the more extreme texts.

The discussion did not stop with Hostiensis. Later authors took up the theme of same-sex unions, the most important being the mid-15th century Bishop Antoninus of Florence. A word about Florence in the 15th century: It was known throughout Europe for its gay culture. For sure, to say that Florence had a gay culture does not mean that it resembled modern urban centers. Florence's gay culture was smaller, forced to go underground because of the steady criminal prosecutions brought against those who violated the city's strict sexual code.

There is no evidence that I can detect suggesting that same-sex marriage occurred in Florence. Nevertheless, it is interesting that it is the Bishop of Florence who revived Hostiensis's preoccupation with same-sex unions. Antoninus's treatment of the subject was far more steeped in biblical theology than Hostiensis's. He deconstructed the passage in Genesis, repeated by Jesus, that in marriage "a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." Antoninus waxed large on this topic. Marriage was this much, he insisted, and much more, since it was also a joining of souls united in the shared endeavor of procreating the next generation.

Same-sex relations violated this expansive biblical understanding. Men who unite with men, women who unite with women, cannot become "one flesh" in the way the Bible understood it. And if they cannot become one flesh, then, Antoninus went on, their actions were in defiance of the divine plan and so must be considered "indecent" and "disgraceful."

Like Hostiensis, Antoninus could fall into truly brutal homophobia. "Sodomy," he asserted, was the greatest sexual sin -- more offensive even than forcible rape. It robs its partakers of everlasting salvation and has even caused the fall of empires.

These arguments, first articulated by Hostiensis, embellished upon by Antoninus, continue to be reasserted today. Marriage justified on the basis of the divinely-intended uniqueness of male/female complementarity remains a staple of Catholic doctrine. And right-wing politicians, even some former candidates for the Republican nomination for president (think of Alan Keyes or Mike Huckabee) have spoken in apocalyptic tones about same-sex marriage and the wrath of God. Homophobia in defense of marriage, in other words, has a long, long history.

This mode of thinking first crystallized 800 years ago in the disputations and deliberations of canon lawyers like Hostiensis. Awareness of this history, I hope, might help change minds where same-sex unions are concerned. If you wish to read more on the subject, you can find a link to a forthcoming law-review article I've written on the subject here.

01/21/2014

Progressive public policy has chiefly appealed to one of two great social values: A sense of fairness; or a concern for the welfare of others. Consider the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960's. This body of legislation was promoted and defended on the basis of fairness. Whole classes of Americans -- African-Americans principally -- were being treated as second-class citizens. They were denied access to public accommodations. They were deprived of equal educational opportunities. They were even robbed of their right to vote, thus denying them the means of changing their condition through the political process. Simple fairness demanded open accommodations, the Voting Rights Act, and the various other measures that were enacted into law.

It has become increasingly difficult to justify social welfare legislation on such grounds, simply because of the increased cynicism of the American public. More than three decades of right-wing rhetoric has taken its toll. This toxic rhetoric bears two characteristics. First, it stresses the alleged dysfunctionality of government. Government cannot get anything right. It is the problem, not the solution. This rhetoric aims fundamentally at delegitimizing governmental services by creating widespread mistrust in government efficacy.

Second, right-wing rhetoric aims to convince individuals that government means to take what is rightfully theirs. The money you earn is yours, no one else's. If it is taxed then, the logic goes, it is taken from you to be given to someone else. It is moved from the makers to the takers. All taxation is explained as redistribution and redistribution is just socialism by another name. The makers should be allowed to keep their hard-earned cash, the takers be damned.

As I have written elsewhere, I see these efforts at delegitimization as destructive of the common good. Healthy societies cannot be premised on language that is meant to institutionalize greed and social isolation. We need to recapture the old progressive vocabulary of the common good.

In the interim, however, I also believe that progressive social policies can also be justified on the basis of social utility. Consider the way I might justify arguments for publicly-provided health care:

We might take the relationship of publicly-provided health care and entrepreneurship. The right wing attempts to pit such health care against entrepreneurship. In fact, the two work well together.

Let's assume that there is a significant number of people possessed of great, innovative ideas whose creativity helps drive the engine of economic growth. We know by observation that a few such people branch off every year in new directions, quitting the security of well-paid jobs for the excitement of forming their own businesses and seeing their ideas come to market. They benefit personally from the wealth they generate, of course, but society also benefits from the jobs they create.

But many more innovative people never branch off on their own. And many of them do not do so because of their concerns over health care. Perhaps they have dependent family members who need health-care coverage. Or perhaps they have pre-existing conditions that render them uninsurable on the open market. For whatever reason, they choose to stay put, and American society is poorer for it. We lose, as a society, the contributions they might make, the jobs they might create, the energy and vitality they possess, and the innovations they might bring to market.

Subsidized health care invites prudent risk-taking. Few established corporations engage in foolish, high-risk, bet-the-company strategies. The risks they take are measured. But small entrepreneurs typically are required to bet everything on the success of their vision. Nothing short of their own welfare, their own economic survival, is at stake. And public health care can reduce the existential threat new entrepreneurs confront when they get sick, and even when they are healthy.

Consider a second way a vocabulary of social utility can assist the case for progressive public policy, and that is in the area of low-cost higher education. When I went to college, I did so as a beneficiary of progressive educational policy. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which I attended in the 1970's, had a low-cost tuition policy. When I first enrolled there in 1973, my tuition was two hundred dollars per semester as a full-time student (it was a little higher when I graduated). That's right. Two hundred dollars per semester, not per credit. There was a time when Wisconsin believed that an educated citizenry was a benefit to society: Well-educated women and men held good jobs, led stable lives, and gave back to the community.

Contemporary higher education policy, however, is in thrall to the right-wing doctrine that a college education is self-serving and that therefore individuals must assume most of the cost of education themselves.

This dogma has been harmful in at least two respects. First, it has stunted social mobility. American social mobility is much lower than it was in the 1970's. Indeed, if we define true, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps social mobility as moving from the bottom twenty percent of wealth to the upper twenty percent, you have a much better chance of doing so in Europe, or Canada, or Australia. American society, in other words, is assuming a rigid class structure that locks out many worthy people from the fruits of economic success for no better reason than that they were born without easy access to a college education.

This right-wing ideology has been harmful in a second way as well, for it is the motive force behind the student-loan crisis. If education is a purely private, purely personal venture and students are expected to cover their own costs, then students from less affluent backgrounds must borrow for their education. And this borrowing has had many deleterious social consequences. Education, which should be a time of intellectual exploration and the development of talents, has assumed the risk profile of a chancy start-up business venture. Social mobility is stifled, since college and graduate-school expense will deter some from its pursuit. And, given the onerous terms and conditions of student-loan debt and its non-dischargeability in bankruptcy, it has now become an anchor on the economy, dragging down crucial sectors, like housing.

Again, a return to the progressive policies of the 1970's, when states invested heavily in higher education, would have the effect of alleviating most of these social costs. After all, society benefits from young adults who have effectively cultivated their talents, who are not constrained in their educational choices, and who are able to buy homes and start new households.

To summarize: Progressives must never abandon appeals to fairness and concern for the vulnerable when advocating on behalf of sound public policies. But we must also bear in mind that many in our audience have been conditioned, through years of exposure to appeals that pander to the selfish side of human nature, to ask what a particular policy can do for them. And for that part of our audience, we must be prepared to answer that policies that are fair, policies that protect and promote the concerns and welfare of all Americans, are also policies that benefit society as a whole.

01/07/2014

What is it about the libertarian infatuation with bitcoins? Ron Paul announced in early December that the bitcoin could "destroy the dollar." He seemed to be gloating. In Chile, a collection of "anarchists, libertarians, and Ron Paul supporters" have founded a libertarian utopia they have named "Galt's Gulch," which will accept payment in bitcoins. Sensibly, the "farm workers and suppliers" who service this community "still want to get paid in pesos."

Is it an innate libertarian quirkiness that drives this fascination with bitcoins? A kind of universal libertarian contrariness? Or is there something else about bitcoins and libertarianism that makes for this mix?

First, a word about bitcoins. It is a digital currency that is independent of any state. It is unclear who invented the bitcoin. Paternity is attributed to a certain Satoshi Nakamoto, but is not known whether this is the actual name of an individual, a pseudonym, or a title masking the identity of a larger collaboration. Joshua Davis in The New Yorker and Adam Penenberg on his website each propose plausible candidates for the real "Satoshi Nakamoto."

Bitcoins bear at least some comparisons to gold. Like gold, they are an extractable product, not from the bowels of the earth but from complex algorithmic computation. Like gold, there is a finite supply of bitcoins -- in theory something like twenty-one million total. And, finally, also like gold, bitcoins have become progressively more difficult to mine. The days of panning for gold have passed, replaced by deep in-ground shafts a mile or more beneath the surface of the earth. So also, the days of discovering a few bitcoins through some simple equations on your home computer have been replaced by industrial strength computer programming in remote locations like Iceland.

The idea seems to be that as bitcoins become more familiar, they will pass as currency in preference to state-based currencies, since, unlike state-based systems, which are subject to changes in money supply, the supply of bitcoins is permanently capped.

This ambition serves as a partial explanation for the popularity of the bitcoin among libertarians, but there is a missing piece of the puzzle in this standard account. And that is the subjective theory of value.

The subjective theory of value, as developed by Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), proposes that all economic activity is premised on differing subjective value judgments of individuals. I may value the new car more than the $10,000 I have to spend on it. The seller values the $10,000 more dearly. And so, thanks to these differing value judgments, an exchange is made possible.

In its final form, the subjective theory of value suggests that all external constraints to contractual freedom must be removed. I may truly desire, for sentimental reasons, for reasons known only to me, to have that dusty broomstick in the closet and I am willing to pay a king's ransom for the privilege of calling it my own. In a truly free society, none should question even doubtful value judgments such as these.

A radically subjective theory of exchange, the logic continues, should include the underlying medium of exchange. What is money, after all, but a medium of exchange? We should be as free to impute our value judgments to the medium we use for our exchanges as we do to the objects and services which we ultimately obtain.

This principle underlies libertarian revulsion towards state-based currencies. Reviled as "fiat" currency ("fiat" in Latin colloquially means "made up"), any state-based system is bound to cause theoretical problems for the libertarian. After all, with a state-based currency the value is by definition imputed by an external source -- the state. The state decrees the existence of dollars, or yen, or pesos, and the state can deflate or inflate the currency's value at will through restricting or expanding the money supply. Judgments that rightfully belong to the individual are thus made the province of the state. So, at least, libertarian logic would have it.

It is this underlying theory of subjective value that makes bitcoins so attractive to libertarians. But my own guess is that the current libertarian passion for bitcoins will end badly. Bitcoins, it must be noted, go beyond even von Mises' account of currency, which associated money with scarce commodities that were usable and desirable in some tangible form. Thus gold has decorative value, spices and salt (used as currency in early forms of trade) were scarce consumables, while beaver pelts (used historically as currency in Western Canada) had very practical utility in the subarctic cold.

Mere digital inscriptions, bitcoins serve none of these purposes. They will not ornament you, feed you, slake your thirst or keep you warm at night.

Bitcoins might end in a mania like tulip bulbs in seventeenth-century Holland. Tulips were newly introduced to Europe at the time. They were attractive and the multi-colored varieties were considered scarce luxury goods. Their novelty and beauty were enough to spur a speculative frenzy, as the price of the scarcest tulip bulps reached extraordinary heights in 1637. And then the prices crashed back to earth. But bitcoins need not end this way. They might, on the other hand, simply morph into a small, niche product, presenting a non-threatening alternative to some credit-card transactions.

Most likely, however, bitcoins will die a slow death, their weaknesses steadily revealed. The inside operators, those with the awareness and sophistication to have staked their bitcoin claims early on, will cash out, leaving more naive and credulous market participants holding the bag. For a while, these small-time investors will buoy one another's spirits, assuring one another that the bitcoin souffle will indeed rise again. And when the souffle remains as flat as a pancake, these duped "investors" will recite the time-worn verses of recrimination -- it's a conspiracy, it's all the government's fault, bitcoins would have worked but for some duplicitous central bank manipulation. And so the beat goes on.

Bitcoin true believers really do hope, even perhaps intend, that their new currency subverts and supplants a state-based system they believe to be non-consensual and coercive. In the end, however, the state's role will be vindicated. As much as libertarians are discomfited by the fact, the state actually does play a useful role in shielding us from manias and outright fraud. Indeed, if the libertarians actually ever realize their stateless paradise, they will discover that the first thing they will need to invent is the state. And so for those Chilean farm workers who want pesos, not bitcoins, as payment for their labor -- they will be the winners in the end.

12/19/2013

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., has recently been much in the news for his staging of a public exorcism on Nov. 20, 2013, the day Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law a bill recognizing marriage equality in Illinois. Bishop Paprocki's actions raise a few questions: What is the state of his diocese? Is it in good health, or is it in decline? And if it is in decline, then why?

There are few happier moments in the faith life of a typical Catholic girl or boy than the reception of First Holy Communion or Confirmation. I still recall my own First Communion, 50 years ago. I approached the altar solemnly, seriously, wearing an immaculate white shirt and necktie. I was awestruck by the doctrine of the real presence, and I remain awestruck to this day. But then afterwards, at the party my parents hosted, I proceeded to run with my cousins through a muddy backyard, ruining the fine set of clothes my mother had so sweetly dressed me in. Even so, my parents were pleased, since this is the great intergenerational transmission of the faith that Catholic families have practiced from time immemorial.

But there is a shadow hanging over the Diocese of Springfield. Ever fewer children are enjoying the Catholic rites of initiation that were such a wondrous part of my own youth. And this precipitous decline has been hastened by the arrival in Springfield of Thomas Paprocki, one of America's fiercest culture-warrior bishops.

First, let's consider some numbers. Paprocki was installed as bishop in June 2010. The number of infant baptisms in 2009, the last year before Paprocki's installation, was 1,899; in 2012, the last year for which numbers are available, that total fell to 1,658, a decline of 12.7 percent. The number of children who received First Holy Communion in 2009 was 2,056; for 2012 it was 1,859, a decline of 9.6 percent. In 2009, 2,290 young people were confirmed. In 2012 it was 2,101. The number of children and adolescents being catechized in the faith is also in decline. In 2009 there were 1,915 high-school students and 8,087 elementary-school students in catechetical instruction. In 2012 the numbers were 1,472 and 7,524, respectively. (The numbers I utilize here are drawn from the Official Catholic Directory, known informally as the Kenedy Directory, for the relevant years.)

To be sure, Springfield was experiencing decline in its sacramental life even before Paprocki became bishop. Under the rule of George J. Lucas, Paprocki's immediate predecessor and another of America's prominent culture-warrior bishops, infant baptisms declined from 2,384 in 2000 (Lucas' first full year as bishop) to 1,899 in 2009, while first communicants fell from 2,763 to 2,056 in the same period.

These declines are not attributable to a general decline in population, since the area covered by the Springfield Diocese has actually added some 50,000 people in the relevant period. Clearly, the transmission belt by which the faith is conveyed from one generation to the next is broken.

The Catholic Church of Springfield is in clear need of revitalization. And that revitalization must begin with the sacraments. For some time now, the Catholic Church has spoken of the "new evangelization." You would expect and hope, given this institutional commitment to outreach, to see the numbers improve.

If we were grading Paprocki on this scale, we might generously give him a D. And we might ask whether his methods have served to attract or repel the Catholic faithful.

Let's look at his homily for midnight mass at Christmas 2010, Paprocki's first Christmas in Springfield. How did he open his homily for midnight mass? With talk of shepherds in the field, a great light shining, Baby Jesus asleep in the manger? No. Nothing so mundane. Did he begin with the mystery of the Incarnation or the miracle of salvation? No, nothing so obvious or predictable.

Paprocki commenced his homily by telling the story of the Battle of Vienna and the defeat of the Turkish armies invading Europe in 1683. He vividly recounted the martial exploits of the Polish King Jan Sobieski and recalled the execution of the Ottoman commander, Kara Mustafa Pasha. Only then did he welcome church-goers by wishing them a merry Christmas. Only on page 6 of the published text, long after Paprocki discussed Sept. 11 and airport security, did he finally mention the Incarnation, in a single paragraph. When he was accused in the local press of "Islamophobia [and] xenophobia," Paprocki did not back off.

It was also around this time that Paprocki came to national attention when he convened a two-day long conference on exorcism. There are only a handful of exorcists in the United States; thus Paprocki explained his motivation for organizing the conference. But with so much evil loose in the world, he suggested, every diocese should have its own resources on exorcism.

And what counts as evil, exactly, for Bishop Paprocki? He made clear in 2012 that one grave intrinsic evil he intended to confront was the Democratic Party platform. Voting for politicians who promote actions or behaviors that are "intrinsically evil," Paprocki declared, imperiled Catholics' salvation, and the Democratic platform endorsed positions that were "intrinsically evil."

The Republican Party, on the other hand, did not endorse intrinsic evil, so he indicated that Catholics were morally free to vote for the GOP. Assuring his audience that he did not mean to tell them how to vote, he warned them that a vote for evil made one complicit in evil. This got the attention of the Los Angeles Times, which editorially encouraged the IRS to investigate the diocese's tax-exempt status in light of Paprocki's politicking.

Undaunted by seeing the Republicans go down in defeat, Paprocki immediately launched into a new political campaign -- he would urge the Catholics of his diocese to oppose same-sex marriage. On Jan. 3, 2013, he directed all the priests of his diocese to read a letter to their congregations in which marriage equality was described as "fraudulent." Same-sex marriage, he insisted, was nothing less than a "grave assault upon ... marriage." Society must be protected from the "harmful idea" that "what essentially makes a marriage is romantic-emotional union."

The struggle to enact marriage equality in Illinois lasted into the summer and fall. Then quickly, unexpectedly, the votes fell into place, the legislature passed the marriage equality bill, and Illinois, in November 2013, became the 16th state to ratify same-sex marriage. Several legislators cited Pope Francis' evident open-mindedness on gays -- "Who am I to judge?" the pope famously asked -- in announcing their decision to support the bill.

This was too much for Bishop Paprocki. He now decided to put his background and interest in exorcism to work. And so he staged his now-infamous exorcism. He announced that his intention was one of confronting the "diabolical influences of the devil" that gave rise to same-sex marriage. If you look closely, Paprocki assured his audience, you can find abundant signs of the devil's handiwork in the campaign for marriage equality. Those who enter "civil same-sex marriage," he went on, are "culpable of serious sin," and the politicians who vote for marriage equality are "complicit as co-operators in facilitating this grave sin."

Assuredly, this performance, which would have been worthy of 19th-century grand opera, does not conform to the new evangelization. I have argued before that the scientific understanding of human sexuality provides firm support for marriage equality. I won't reiterate those arguments here.

Rather, I would like to encourage Catholics to persevere, keep the faith, and introduce the next generation to joyful message of the Gospel. The church is larger than any single individual, and finally what matters is the soul's relationship to God.

12/12/2013

A national television audience tuned in eagerly anticipating the moment. The air crackled with excitement. The countdown solemnly proceeded. And then it happened. It blew up on the launch pad. It exploded. In an expanding, billowing fireball, the Vanguard rocket intended to carry the American response to Sputnik sprayed burning fuel and debris across the south Florida landscape. December 6, 1957, was not a good day for the American space program.

The Affordable Care Act's roll out has not gone smoothly. No one should sugar coat its debut. The Healthcare.gov website could not sustain the volume that swamped it in the days after it opened for business on October 1, 2013. Some eight million people attempted to log onto either the federal healthcare.gov website or state-sponsored health-care websites in the first two weeks of operation and nearly all of them emerged from the process frustrated and defeated. It seems that even though the Congressional Budget Office had predicted large numbers of visitors -- estimating that some seven million people might try to enroll in the first three months -- the website was not equipped to handle this level of traffic.

Knowing that not only his presidency but the health and well-being of millions of Americans were at stake, President Obama prioritized the need to fix the website and it seems that the repairs are now working. News about the Affordable Care Act now accentuates its successes. On Monday, December 2, it was reported that perhaps as many as a million people visited the new and improved website. In a three-day span in early December, nearly 60,000 of these visitors actually logged off after obtaining insurance coverage.

Obstacles remain to be overcome, chief among them the continuing efforts to subvert and discredit the new system by right-wing politicians (more on that below). But for now, the Affordable Care Act is achieving at least its most important preliminary goal -- enrolling America's uninsured.

In comparison, the early space program did not go nearly so smoothly. The year 1958 was bumpy and uncertain. On January 31, the United States succeeded in launching Explorer One into earth orbit. But by this time, the Soviets had already launched Sputnik 2, placing a living creature -- the dog Laika -- into space. And on February 5, 1958, a second Vanguard rocket exploded, this time 57 seconds into the mission. In its eagerness to outdo the Soviets, the American space program then overreached. In August and again in October, the United States attempted to launch lunar probes. Neither launch succeeded in escaping earth's gravity, let alone come close to the moon. Pioneer 0, launched in August, exploded after only 73 seconds of flight.

What was the political reaction to these evident disasters? Dwight Eisenhower, the incumbent President, was a Republican. In late 1957, he had suffered a minor stroke. Both Houses of Congress were in the hands of the opposition Democratic Party. Clearly, if ever an administration was vulnerable, if ever a presidency stood at the mercy of its opponents, this was it.

Remarkably, after some initial public skepticism and doubt ("Adverse Publicity Harmful Abroad, Democrats Say", Robert C. Albright, The Washington Post and Times Herald Dec 7, 1957), focused principally on the decision to televise the Vanguard launch ("Butler Raps Satellite Publicity", Daily Defender Dec 9, 1957), the Democratic leadership resolved to be supportive. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson -- who could be fiercely partisan -- was responsible for rallying his Party to the President's side.

Johnson understood that national security was at stake. "By dissension and narrow partisanship," Johnson warned ominously, the Congress could create an "insurmountable barrier" to success ("Johnson's Talk to Democratic Senators", The Washington Post and Times Herald Jan 8, 1958). If Congress did not adopt a stance of "non-partisan" cooperation on outer space, Johnson continued, it could set the nation up for a replay of Pearl Harbor ("Johnson's Now a Democrat Second", Robert C. Albright, The Washington Post and Times Herald Dec 22, 1957).

Success in space exploration was deemed to be above politics, a cause vital to American well-being. It was the Cold War, after all, and fear of the Soviets lurked always in the background.

Demographic collapses like this just should not happen, certainly not in affluent nations. It happened in Russia in the 1990s, when the social breakdown that followed the collapse of the Soviet led to the massive demoralization of the people and the disappearance of basic social services. But life expectancy just should not collapse among broad segments of the population in a nation like ours.

The right wing has had nothing to offer on this crisis beyond some blame-the-victim rhetoric. Indeed, they have demonstrated that they are the principal obstacles to improvement and reform. To say this is not to be partisan or inflammatory. It is truth, as reported by no less an authority than Bill Moyers, on his website, billmoyers.com. There we encounter the story of a cancer patient who was refused cancer screenings because of his uninsured status and inability to pay. Finally, when his cancer fatally metastasized, he was able to seek the treatment of acute symptoms through an emergency room.

Not one of this merry band of nihilists grasps the enormity of the health-care crisis confronting America. The life expectancy of the poor is plummeting -- for the simple reason that they are poor. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, unlike the Democrats of the 1950s, today's right wing is incapable of putting aside a narrow, self-interested partisanship in order to serve the nation's common needs. And that is to their lasting shame.

12/06/2013

Michael Sean Winters said it first: Pope Francis should appoint Jennifer Haselberger to the new commission he is organizing to address the on-going crisis of priestly pedophilia.

The formation of a Commission to address sex abuse was announced on Thursday, December 5, 2013. It remains unclear what the Commission's powers will be or its precise jurisdiction. It even remains uncertain where precisely in the Vatican bureaucracy the Commission will be placed.

Still, we know some of the details of what Pope Francis has planned, thanks to Sean Cardinal O'Malley's announcement. He indicated that the Commission will address the pastoral dimension of the child-abuse crisis. Presumably, he means that the Commission might help facilitate the healing process which the entire Church, lay and clerical alike, must undergo to put this crisis of confidence behind it.

Cardinal O'Malley indicated that the Commission will also look to reforming the ways in which the Church safeguards children. Finally, the Cardinal stated that the Commission will consist of a cross-section of the Church that will "include priests, men and women religious, and laypeople."

And this is where Jennifer Haselberger comes in. She is the St. Paul-Minneapolis canon lawyer whose advice to Archdiocesan authorities to practice openness and transparency in their handling of pedophilia cases went unheeded and who has now become a prominent whistle-blower.

The Commission's members must be independent. They must be fearless. And they must be credible. A good place to achieve these goals is to nominate Jennifer Haselberger to the new papal commission on child abuse.

11/26/2013

As we approach American Thanksgiving, it is time to express gratitude for a very important development in the life of the Catholic Church, which I very much love. And that is the grace of your pontificate.

It began in those exciting early days. Recall the foot-washing ceremony on Holy Thursday? What did the foot-washing represent? Did it symbolize Jesus commissioning an all-male priesthood? Or did it stand for something else? Perhaps Jesus' awareness that those who lead must first of all serve. When you washed the feet of those youthful prisoners, boys and girls, Christians and non-Christians, you made it clear that Jesus' message of ultimate self-sacrifice in the service of others is that it must have universal appeal.

And you have been living up to that ideal in your own public ministry. Your wreath-laying at Lampedusa was heart-warming even while it was heart-wrenching. You reminded us that desperate immigrants, who have done nothing wrong aside from searching for a better life, are routinely blotted from our view. Their lives are led and lost on the invisible margins, and you made that visible to us. And the visit you paid to the Brazilian slum, where you showed and shared your love, that reminded us of what your namesake, St. Francis, would have done. And we know that St. Francis acted in imitation of Jesus.

You know and feel in your bones that the great crisis confronting the world today is the worship of Mammon. Money has become the new global deity, commanding universal tribute, universal obeisance. It is, you said, the "idol" before which the world bows down. But as we know from the Gospel, we cannot serve both God and Mammon. I pray that you draw the Church into effective action on behalf of the poor. This would be in keeping with the priority Jesus set in the Gospels.

I am grateful for that meeting you had with the Latin American nuns in early June. The good nuns you hosted harbored a great fear that they might be investigated by a hostile Church bureaucracy, the way their sisters in North America had been. You put their minds at ease, reminding them not to worry about making mistakes: "Perhaps even a letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine [of the Faith] will arrive for you, telling you that you said such or such thing. Explain whatever you have to explain, but move forward." "It is necessary to shake things up," you told those sisters. And you have not shied away from doing that yourself, your Holiness.

Remember how you said "gay" on your return flight to Rome after World Youth Day in Brazil? "If a person is gay, and follows the Lord, and has good will, then who am I to judge?" This was a truly remarkable statement. Efforts have been made to minimize it. Commentators persistently try to misinterpret it as applying exclusively to priests and candidates for the priesthood. For sure, the question you were asked dealt explicitly with a priest you had appointed to high office, but your answer was not confined to that situation. It was general, meant to apply to clergy and laity alike.

At the same time, you have always -- conspicuously, consistently -- avoided the harsh condemnatory language of the Catechism where gays are concerned. Changing doctrine is hard, but changing tone, shifting emphasis, these are welcome first steps. The Church, after all, practiced de facto religious tolerance long before Vatican II recognized religious liberty as a human right.

I am grateful for your openness to culture. You do not see the world in dualistic terms. It is not "us against them." You appreciate that human beings are admixtures of flawed sinfulness and genuine greatness. You understand that culture, which is merely human experience writ large, comprises the same admixture. Even a great sinner is capable of good deeds. And even a great sinner can be forgiven. This does not mean that evil is overlooked or excused. Rather, it means that the wholeness of persons and societies are taken into account. And I think that this means the end of the "culture war."

The Church should not, of course, surrender on essential principles. But Church leaders should come to know that it is one thing to cooperate with the political process to achieve worthy ends and another thing altogether to take political stands, finding one party's platform praiseworthy while denouncing the other side as representing "intrinsic evil."

You set a good example of how a prelate must approach politics when you took your valiant stand on Syrian intervention. You realized that violence begets violence and your call for peace, which was not driven by partisan motives but by a desire to spare innocent lives, transcended narrow political boundaries. Your prayers were heartfelt and I think they achieved tangible results. Thank you.

I look forward to next year. I pray that you are not captured by your handlers, that you keep your spontaneity, and that the Gospel always remains foremost. You've certainly helped to renew my faith.